Dropkick Murphys’ 2011 LP Going Out In Style saw the band put together a linear, focused concept album following the fictional life of one Cornelius Larkin. In 2013, the new album Signed And Sealed In Blood sees them relax a little. Stylistically, the band never strays from what they know, so the music (see traditional Irish folk, Oi! punk and rock’n’roll) itself is similar between the two efforts, but what’s different is the process of getting there. Where Going Out In Style feels measured, Signed And Sealed In Blood feels like a party; a bunch of simpler songs that a crowd can sing along to.
The themes touched on in Signed… are everything you expect from a Murphys album. They are the amplified voice of every working class Bostonian. There are songs about getting drunk (Burn, Out Of Our Heads), good Catholic girls (Out On The Town), the Irish spirit of rebellion (The Prisoners) and their beloved Boston Red Sox baseball team (Jimmy Collins’ Wake).
But it’s songs like Rose Tattoo and End Of The Night that really set this album apart. Rose Tattoo is an unconventional love song in a traditional Irish veil, while End Of The Night is a quintessential drinking song that will resonate with the rummy in all of us. It’s the type of song to have us arm in arm, clinking glasses and wiping tears away as we wail the chorus into the night.
After 17 years and eight albums, Dropkick Murphys prove once again that while anyone can add a tin whistle, banjo or an accordion to punk rock, there’s only one band that does it best.
BY RICK WARNER
Best Track: Rose Tattoo
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: FLOGGING MOLLY, RANCID, BAD RELIGION
In A Word: Rummy
