When they’re not unfurling the Jolly Roger on cutlass-waving, rum-ravaged voyages around the southerly seas of Port Chalmers, pirate rock stalwarts Scurvy Dogs are regularly playing live rock’n’roll around the ale houses, inns, and dens of decadence that make up Dunedin’s live music scene. There was a national tour a few years back, a support slot for Stiff Little Fingers last year, and a number of releases over the course of the band’s decade long existence. It sounds like a hell of a lot of fun. So much so, the current three-piece incarnation decided to record more of that swashbuckling merriment for posterity. The result is ‘Set Sail For Hell’, a rocking and rollicking five-track release, produced by long-standing first mate Paul Sammes. While there are keen Celtic-rock reference points throughout, and the entire album is pirate-themed, punk rock sits right at the very core of this release. This is rebel music played with attitude. Good old-fashioned hard and fast fun. Sinking of John Barleycorn is one such example – less about a maritime disaster, it’s more about raising an overflowing tankard to the gods of fire water, and it rivals the Johnny Horton cover Sink The Bismarck as the best thing here.