With the precision of a swashbuckler and the panache and grace of a doctor, Fort Collins, Colorado’s The Swashbuckling Doctors sail their merry ship full of pirate bards back onto the scene with their first full length LP since 2018 and their first new music since 2020. Their unique blend of prog, rock, ska, new wave, and punk sits somewhere between DEVO and Madness.
The songs are mostly fun, a little off kilter, tend not to be too serious, and are often catchy as hell, with vocal hooks that can earworm and outstanding musicianship that reminds me of some of the most fun 80s songs at times and then feels completely modern at other times.
The album begins with “Work By Day, Skank by Night”, the most 80s ska/ new wave/ prog rock/ indie song I’ve ever heard a modern band perform. It definitely reminds me of Madness. It’s just a fun dance song, nothing serious in the lyrics, but the simple ska guitar riff, the horn solo, the backing vocals, and that damn earworm of a vocal hook has me singing along every time I hear the song.
From there, the album goes on to “Amateur Hour”, a song that blends somewhere between ska and swing revival, with exciting drums, great bass guitar, and just an exciting feel that pulls you to your feet to make you start dancing. The drums in this track are definitely doing the heavy lifting, but it’s not really over the top, and the rest of the band does a great job keeping up- especially the horns and bass in the second half of the track.
“The Lost Second Wave of Ska” is just an upbeat ska track that serves, in part, as a mini ska history lesson, while setting parts of the song to the influences of that lost second wave rhythm.
But then the second wave ends, and the next track is “Whatever Happened to Us” one of the fastest paced songs, and also one of the more punk influenced songs on the album- but this track isn’t exactly 3rd wave in sound. It’s just a fast paced ska and punk track about getting older and wondering where all the time went- trying to figure out where all the time went.
Two of my favorite tracks on the album, are completely absurd. Typically, I am not a fan of absurdity and nonsense in music. I want my music to have a meaning. I love art with a purpose. The first of these two tracks is “Cadaver Daddy”- which, to be fair, could easily be said to have very real world political commentary, as it’s about a politician dying and still demanding your vote for president in his zombie form with his platform of eating brains. The music in this track is so fucking hyper and off the rails. The guitar is insane. The vocal breakdowns and tension building are amazing, and I think it has some klezmer influences. It’s just off the fucking rails and I’m here for every second of it. Then, a few songs later, we get “Skanking Demon Horde”. This track reminds me, musically, of Jeffries Fan Club- except lyrically it’s about trying to date a girl who summons literal demons and the protagonist growing more afraid through the song. These songs are lyrically so far from my wheelhouse, but musically and thematically phenomenal. I absolutely love it.
Probably my favorite song is “Go On Then”. It’s musically pretty similar to the intro track, and reminds me of Devo or Madness. It’s more of a social criticism which is probably why it’s my favorite of the songs, but it’s so fucking hooky. I can’t not dance to this song and it just keeps getting closer and closer to going off the rails but it never quite slips. The rhythm keeps repeating, always a little more busy and hectic and it feels like it’s always getting faster, and it just keeps going like a run on sentence that never ends and always gets more crowded and it has to end somewhere but maybe it doesn’t it just goes on and on and on and holy shit I love this song as it goes on and on and doesn’t stop, and just won’t stop it doesn’t stop, because it goes on and on and on.
There are no bad songs on this album. While I didn’t mention most of the second half of the album, the last songs are every bit as good as the rest of the album, but it does no good for me to go into detail with every song, even though I want to. You’ve got to give this album a few listens and see if you love it as much as I do.
Written by Gimpleg
