Review Summary: Seminal celtic punk act Dropkick Murphys comes back with a tragically uninteresting album.
I almost forgot that Dropkick Murphys existed. They used to be one of my favourite bands back in high school, but now after many years my music taste has moved on and eventually they became one of the major victims of my “Punk Revival Purge” – as I like to call it – that I carried out during my first year at the university.
Signed and Sealed in Blood came out exactly four years ago and I must admit it was not a brilliant album. It had its moments but compared to other Murphys’ releases it sounded weak and purposeless. Nevertheless, Dropkick Murphys promoted the album with a long-lasting tour, which made those who didn’t really appreciate the album at least enjoy the effort and the energy they put into it.
And now this. The title is already forgettable and at first it looks more like a compilation of lost tracks than a proper LP. After you’ve realised it’s actually the ninth studio album you start to panic and you understand this could be really the end of it, that their ability to write fun and light-hearted punk songs that everybody can enjoy during a drinking spree with their friends is gone.
The album tries to be an easy listen – and it is, but every song on it is lame and there are no real standout tracks through the whole of it.
It is straightforward 2000s Celtic punk, sadly more Mahones-like than Flogging Molly-like (if you’ve ever listened to
Swagger or
Drunken Lullabies you know what I mean) and very distant from the Pogues’ canonical tradition. Within some 35 minutes the album has consumed your hope and you wish you had never begun listening to it, and when you are ready to call it quits there is this one track at the end that saves the album from guaranteed disaster and you from eternal bitterness.
Until the Next Time has a very catchy chord progression and even if it’s not as epic as
Kiss Me I’m ***faced or as affectionate as
End of the Night, it manages to cheer you up if all you wanted was to have a little bit of fun singing and dancing to silly tunes.
As for me, this song made me a little sad. The title and lyrics foretell a sort of momentary farewell, as if the band is trying to tell us they might stop making music for a while and that wouldn’t be a bad idea: they do really seem out of things to say.
Dropkick Murphys have been playing the same music genre with the same style for two decades, it was clear that one day they would be struggling to compose new inspired songs. I’d rather see them go on hiatus or even split up than watching them release boring and artificial albums every now and then just to please its fan base.
11 Short Stories of Pain & Glory is certainly a disappointment, but it confirmed the lack of creativity that
Signed and Sealed in Blood showed already, symbolically marking the end of a genre that amused us during the 2000s and that now is pretty much gone for good.
