By the way, if you've missed it I'll say it again: for the duration of this countdown my weekly Friday mp3 mixes will be posted on my other blog right here. The other blog also has a running feature with my favorite songs of the 00s from genres other than those covered here on the metal blog. You'll find that here.
Okay, here we go once again:
On this their third album, Boston's sort-of-Irish folk rock punk dudes changed their line up quite a bit.
Original guitarist and founding member Rick Barton took a hike, and was replaced by not only a new guitarist, but two of them. They also added a dude on tin whistle & mandolin and stuff, as well as the legendary Robbie "Spicey McHaggis" Medeiros on bagpipes. This was the only album that featured McHaggis and he was only a member for a couple of years before leaving to spend more time with his family, but his impact (and his bodymass) was so huge that his spirit still lives on within the band to such a degree that some even think he's still in the band. The fact that this album has a song (The Spicy McHaggis Jig, a big live favorite among fans) written about McHaggis and his penchant for "chicks over four hundred pounds" probably has plenty to do with it.
The addition of then 17-year old Marc Orrell, appropriately nicknamed "The Kid", was a huge improvement in my opinion. Not only did he have classic rock licks to spare, but he had an effortless, fluid playing style that Barton lacked and which suited Dropkick Murphys' ever-evolving sound as they grew into more of a Celtic rock band with punk flourishes as opposed to a Celtic punk band with rock flourishes. He was also a fucking firecracker on stage and made their already mad live show even more energetic. Orrell left the band in 2008 to pursue other musical horizons.
The result of all these changes in camp Murphy? Their magnum opus, that's what. People always tend to think the follow up, 2003's Blackout, is the best Dropkick Murphys album. Those people are drunk. Don't pay any attention to them.
While Blackout is a most excellent album, this is the one where everything clicked; this album has the best songs, the best production, the best party atmosphere, the best shout-along choruses, the best of everything. On the albums before and after this one the combination punk rock vs. Irish folk music has always tipped over in either direction. Not so here, the two styles mix perfectly.
This album rules, I cannot praise it enough. It's the kind of album that makes you wish you were Irish. Or at least from Boston.
Or at least have any sort of Celtic affiliation so you wouldn't feel like such a tool when you stumble around in a scally cap on St. Patrick's Day with green beer on your shirt.
(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - For Boston
(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - Heroes from our past
Buy it @ Amazon.com
1 comments:
Dude
I rarely d-load the offered tunes what with being more of an old geezer, but I come daily n read to keep up with what's the currency in hard rock.But the Murohys!? YOU RULE dude
StandingDamaged
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