For their seventh full-length studio release, Irish thrashers Gama Bomb return with a 19th-century nautical theme. Sort of like Moby Dick except with a Yeti, Sea Savage (Prosthetic Records) finds the band dressed like a hairier version of the cast of arthouse horror film The Lighthouse while presenting the album as a play split into two acts. Or at least try to anyway, as they inevitably end up getting sidetracked into songs involving movies and martial arts.

Full-on speed is often tempered with a tendency towards traditional metal, the band ploughing through much of the record like a mentally unstable Judas Priest – opening cut ‘Judo Killer’ illustrating the point perfectly. The title track steps back into more familiar thrash territory, complete with vocalist Philly Byrne going full King Diamond, while ‘Miami Supercops’ speeds merrily along at a rate of knots. Based on Edward Furlong‘s snarky teenage character from Terminator 2, ‘She’s Not My Mother, Todd’ features some good old fashioned sci-fi movie-based thrashing but just falls short of the likes of ‘In the Court of General Zod’ or ‘OCP’.

‘Iron Blood’ and ‘Lords of the Hellfire Club’ keep the speed going before the classic metal returns with the Priest meets 3 Inches of Blood riffery of ‘Sheer Khan’. Former guitarist Luke Graham returns briefly, co-writing lyrics to ‘Rusty Jaw’ a ‘threequel’ to accompany earlier tracks ‘Steel Teeth’ and ‘Return To Blood Castle’.

‘Monsterizer’ and the ridiculously titled ‘Ready, Steady, Goat!’ are both fast and catchy, while things eventually reach terminal velocity with ‘Electric Pentacle’ before easing off slightly with closer ‘Gone Haywire’.

Short, aggressive, fun, and supremely silly, Sea Savage is a great example of Gama Bomb doing what they do best, but with a little extra variety.

8 / 10

GARY ALCOCK