Sharks Come Cruisin-A Past We Forget That We Need to Know
Self
March 5, 2011

Anyone that reads this site knows how much I enjoy Sharks Come Cruisin. I was hooked from the time I saw them first setting up cue cards many years ago, and they have been impressing me ever since. Obviously, I was salivating all last year knowing that they were recording a new album, barely able to even contain my excitement upon listening to it for the first time. New releases from beloved bands can be hard to listen to, and sometimes have the disappoint factor at first because the songs aren't familiar. I didn't feel that at all with this album. These songs are instant classics, feeling as comfortable as a nice pair of sneakers.

Sharks Come Cruisin would pretty much fit right at home on the No Idea or Paper and Plastick roster. They take sea shanties and turn them into punk rock sing alongs. To make things easy, I describe them to most people by saying they sound like Dropkick Muphys if they played sea shanties, but that is the easy way out (as most New England people know Dropkick Murphys). They use a lot of "traditional" instruments (banjo, fiddle, mandolin and even a melodica), but they don't pride themselves on having these instruments. Instead, they let the sing along vocals of Mark Lambert steer the ship, while everything else is there, but not overbearing. There are ballads ("Wayward Boys," "Shenondoah") that break up the rocking tunes quite nicely.

While people could consider Sharks Come Cruisin a "cover" band, this album breaks away from that, with them adding some original tunes that sound as classic as the sea shanties that inspired the band in the first place. The great thing about their original songs is that they sound like they could have been sea shanties. One listen to "Raise Up" and "Four Years Before the Mast" will make you want to sign up on a ship just so you can sing these songs in their true element.

Written by: RF
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