Pirates and sailors sang sea chanteys as work songs — morale boosters devised to provide the necessary rhythm for pulling anchor, hauling line and hoisting sail. Chanteys were also the foulest, loneliest, most murderous ditties of the past four centuries: proto-punk rock. Some soundtrack! Rogue's Gallery compiles 43 such songs at the behest of Pirates of the Caribbean's Johnny Depp and director Gore Verbinski, with the help of one wild A-list. Nick Cave, Bryan Ferry, Lou Reed and Jolie Holland all fly the black flag. Lucinda Williams' gorgeous "Bonnie Portmore" soars. Jarvis Cocker's rollicking "A Drop of Nelson's Blood" builds to a screaming, chaotic peak. Even Seattle's legendary Baby Gramps brings his washtub-scrub throat-song to a couple of cranky tracks, and veteran folker Loudon Wainwright III shows us a curious side on "Good Ship Venus": Onnnnnn the good ship Venus/Christ, you should have seen us/The figurehead was a whore in bed/Sucking a dead man's penis. Despite its heterogeneity, Gallery is a concise, compelling listen from beginning to end; a porthole to a romantic, salty past; and a fresh look at some hall-of-famers.
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