Alestorm

Few bands have turned a single joke into a whole identity quite like Alestorm. Formed in Perth in 2004 under the name Battleheart, the Scottish group took their song "Heavy Metal Pirates" as a sign to commit to a seafaring theme, folding folk metal into their power metal roots. Critics and fans soon began calling their output "pirate metal", a label that stuck to a sound built around Christopher Bowes's keytar.

They signed to Napalm Records in 2007 and released their debut, Captain Morgan's Revenge, in early 2008. Its follow-up, Black Sails at Midnight, arrived in May 2009, and Back Through Time followed in June 2011. Sunset on the Golden Age, released in August 2014, reached number one on the UK Rock Chart, and No Grave But the Sea topped Billboard's Top Heatseekers Albums chart in 2017. The most recent full-length, The Thunderfist Chronicles, came out in June 2025, following Curse of the Crystal Coconut and Seventh Rum of a Seventh Rum.