I've given the Bilge Pumps a pretty hard time since I first reviewed their music in 2000.

After listening to their album We Don't Know, I wrote that, "despite obvious enthusiasm and buckets of vocal potential, the album falters." Two years later, on the oddly titled Greatest Hits Vol. VIII, I said the band had "strengthened its vocals, honed its wit and polished its overall presentation," but in a review of A Pirate's Christmas Wish in 2011, I bluntly noted that "several of the boys in this band ... have no business singing anywhere people can hear them. And yet sing they do, and that kind of optimism deserves some reward."

And so it continues. I reviewed them twice more in 2014; regarding their 2012 release The Idiodyssey I said the guys "just aren't great singers ... (and) some of the solo performances will make you cringe" -- although I did give them credit for being "enthusiastic and hearty and loud." In my most recent review, of 2014's Bail Money, I conceded, "these guys do grow on you a bit, like a particularly resilient form of mold. They are fun, and that often is enough to carry a show. If I was at a pub and was, say, three or four beers in, I'm quite sure I'd have a good time if the Bilge Pumps started to play."

Well, last year I received another one ... along with the following email from band member Craig Lutke, who performs as Maroon the Shantyman:

Since this will be our final CD (we'll keep making albums, but no more discs), I wanted to keep the tradition alive of our traditional kick to the bells and see if you can put together a review of the album. 2 CD's means double the pain/pleasure.

Thanks for your time and efforts over the years and I look forward to one last run through the wringer!

How could I refuse? I mean, I did put it off for a year, but I can blame the delay on marrying, moving, packing and unpacking, a pandemic and any other number of excuses. Here I am at last.

Although, now that I look at it, did Craig mean to say "kick to the balls," or did he really mean "bells"? Do people kick bells down in Texas?

Never mind. This Texas-based band is, as of the time of this recording, Lutke, Ted Dossey, Nathan Campbell, Mary Dossey, David Ruffin, Christopher Dallion, Fred Flores and Dana Smith, all of whom have piratical pseudonyms that I won't list here, because pixels don't come cheap.

OK, this is a long-winded review already, and I haven't said much about the music itself. I guess I must. Will that make you happy, Craig?

Planned Piratehood (clever title) contains two discs, 34 songs, and more than two hours of music. Many of the songs are traditional, although some of the lyrics have been revised by the band. There are also a bunch of original songs, plus covers from the likes of Jimmy Buffet, Archie Fisher, Andy M. Stewart, Heather Alexander, Van Morrison and Stephen Stills.

Have they dramatically improved in the last few years? Or perchance have I undergone a change in attitude, or lowered my standards? Do I find myself loving this band much more than I have in the past?

Nope. But ... I have to admit that I found myself smiling a bit more this time around. Why? Maybe it's the recurring refrain from "Lucky Pierre" that crops up in unexpected moments. Or the dreadful and yet utterly fascinating version of the "Sailor's Hornpipe" on steel drum. Perhaps it's the fact that they keep on singing with such ruthless abandon, even when it hurts. (Us, not them. I imagine they enjoy it quite a lot.)

Yeah, that must be it. This band of scalawags has, for whatever reason, decided to pass the time dressing up in pirate clothes and warbling shanteys when they could be doing something else. Anything else. C'mon guys, something else? But no, they keep doing this with dogged determination, and they aren't going to let some faraway reviewer dissuade them. Well, more power to them! The world could use more people who dress like pirates and sing like no one is listening!

By the way ... by what power of prophecy did the band, on its album cover, know to cover their faces (mostly) with medical face masks? This was recorded in 2019, long before the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread. Are they the source of this damned coronavirus??

[ visit The Bilge Pumps' website ]