Dropkick Murphys
Going out in Style
Born & Bred Records
If you still have “Road of the Righteous” stuck in your brain, this is a godsend – it’s got an equally sticky earworm along with enough froth-mouthed unfocused Irish anger to get you through a year’s worth of beer brawls. Start off with “Hang ‘Em High,” a call to arms for either a surprise victory or righteous ass-kicking from a superior force. It’s pure bravado backed with intimidating bagpipes and a lead singer who might be wearing little else beyond blue paint. Title track “Going out in Style” asks “what if I gave a party, and the whole neighborhood came?” The DKMs would apologize for peeing on your couch the next time they dropped by, no hard feelings, feel free to point your own willie at my Barcalounger and we’ll call it even. You’d kill to go to the party, but you’d go with the certainty that your girlfriend won’t bail you out for a few days. This is the song that would be stuck in your head as you sobered up.
“Hardest Mile” sounds suspiciously like the Dust Rhinos’ “Sailing with the Captain,” “Cruel” is the sad slow tear-jerker all good Celtic collections need so you can take a pee, “Memorial Day” looks back to the good old days, “Climbing a Chair to Bed” presages the upcoming drunken evenings, and we wrap up with an especially outrageous “Wild Irish Rover” which covers all those other storytelling situations. The drums are sharp, the lyrics slightly slurred, and the energy crackles with red-haired machismo as the band’s groupies hide. This album will stick in your head until the next release, and you just have time to learn the lyrics so you can scream along at their next show.
Dropkick Murphys: http://www.dropkickmurphys.com
