It nearly gave my mother-in-law a heart attack...er, which wouldn't be a terrible thing ;). I'm not a good reviewer but I felt compelled to say something...this CD is truly like nothing else I've ever heard and in this case it's a very good thing.

Avast, Ye Scurvy Dogs! is an outstanding CD, albeit very, very difficult to describe. It's perhaps best classified as an art song cycle concerning the slave trade, but that description conjures a much too pompous and pretentious aural image. The songs themselves are elliptical, quirky, sometimes bawdy, and often rapturously melodic. The central instrument throughout is Cameron Bobro's enormous operatic bass voice. The supporting instruments, by contrast (and maybe by necessity) are small: wheezy organs, fizzy, thin electric guitar lines, warbling, mousy synth lines--a tapestry of synth quirk with an organic edge provided by acoustic guitars and occasional exotic percussion. It's a very consistent and original sonic texture. Great, striking, sometimes frightening songs. I'll venture, confidently, that you have nothing like this in your CD collection.