Lubber's Hole

The clue to the USP with She Shanties is in the name: women singing sea shanties. This is their third album, following in the tongue-in-cheek tradition of their previous nautically named releases, Spanker Boom and Futtock Shrouds. But there is something much less tongue-in-cheek about what they deliver.

One of the most brilliant signatures of She Shanties is that they sing songs sung by men without changing the lyrics. I hate the way lyrics are changed based on whether the singer is male or female – like that matters! In the same spirit as The Pogues, when Cáit O’Riordan sang ‘I’m a Man You Don't Meet Every Day’, She Shanties deliver them straight, and their music is all the more effective for it. Indeed, song ‘Bound to Australia’ carries the exact same chorus as O’Riordan's classic.

These are a mix of self-penned and traditional shanties, all a cappella and with solos that have a rough, raspy authenticity, such as on the wonderfully atmospheric and coarse ‘Old Moke’. They also make sensitive and astute reference to the origins of sea shanties in West African work songs brought to the Americas in the slave trade, and from there to the sailing ships of the 19th century – exemplified by ‘Johnny Come Down to Hilo’.