I first encountered the Jersey based five-piece Parish 13 at the Sark Roots Festival back in 2017 when I made note of their unconventional appearance and approach as looking like something from Royston Vasey in The League Of Gentlemen.

While maybe a little extreme, that description still seems to fit their pirate themed folk pop that has now been committed to record across the ten tracks of A Rum Do.

From the frantic opening strains of Dead Man Sailing it’s clear what territory we are in as the band and their music are as energetic as one would expect from the off and it quickly becomes clear that the pirate theme of their live shows, which also come peppered with covers of other songs, is even more focussed here.

Just the titles of the songs demonstrate this with the likes of A Pirate’s Son (Am I), We Sail For Timbuktu and My Mermaid Wife all explicitly demonstrating the nautical flavour while the other songs deal piratical themes, particularly those of drinking, carousing and, in a few cases, some of the more gruesome aspects of the ‘lifestyle’.

It’s clear the songs are all designed to be best listened to with a good hearty beer or rum in hand in the corner of a pub and, as such, probably work best live but, when the band fully commit to their potentially slightly ludicrous concept, it does elevate to become something rather fun and enjoyable. This is most notable on A Pirates Son and We Sail which are rollicking drunken adventures delivered through the medium of contemporary novelty folk.

Elsewhere the album goes into a kind of cartoon horror movie direction with The Bogeyman and The Eyes in particular getting rather gruesome (maybe a little too much for the otherwise lighter end music) while the impetus behind The Last Drink I Had and Buy Us Another Beer is fairly obvious.

I have to admit that, as said, while this all works well live, there are points where listening away from that environment the ‘novelty’ does start to tire somewhat and, while nearest comparable acts from the island’s Clameur De Haro or The Space Pirates Of Rocquaine vary their subject matter somewhat, Parish 13 feel a little restricted by their own concept.

That said A Rum Do sounds great, recorded by Lucas Saunter and mixed by Nic Dinnie (of indie rockers The Tarantulips) showing the music community aspect of where the band come from, its crisp and clean and those behind the desk have done a great job of balancing an often challenging group of instruments.

While not perfect there’s still a lot to like on A Rum Do, though I would also encourage anyone who likes the sound of it to check out the band live if at all possible, and I really think someone should contact the Guinness Book Of Records to see if this holds some kind of record of uses of the word ‘rum’ on an audio recording!