Through a strange coincidence I
was listening to this album on a weekend walk home while wearing a band
t-shirt. I had also had a couple of pints, which I imagine is exactly how the
Dropkick Murphys want their music enjoyed.
Disc 889 is….Blackout
Artist: Dropkick
Murphys
Year of Release: 2003
What’s up with the Cover? Some very bad photoshopping.
This cover is likely intended to capture the visceral energy of the Murphys but
instead it looks like the cover of some guy’s homemade mixed compilation.
Actually, scratch that. I do homemade song compilations all the time and my
covers are always better than this.
How I Came To Know It: This was just me buying another
Dropkick Murphys album after I discovered them and started mining their back
catalogue. I believe this was the third Murphys album I got, after “Sing Loud,
Sing Proud” and “The Gang’s All Here” (reviewed back at Disc 704).
How It Stacks Up: I have seven Dropkick Murphys albums, which
isn’t all of them, but it’s close. Of the seven, “Blackout” is the best.
Ratings: 4 stars but almost 5
Listening
to “Blackout” always makes me want to see the Dropkick Murphys live. Their raw
energy oozes out of this record, angry and triumphant Celtic rock with a punk
edge that makes you want to stand up and throw your first in the air.
“Blackout”
is the Murphys best-produced album, which might make punk purists cringe. Since
the Murphys aren’t strictly punk and I’m not a punk purist, I appreciated the
production a lot. There is just no good reason why you should deliberately make
your record sound worse than it has to.
Despite
the great production the visceral quality of the Murphys shines through. They
make you feel like they are throwing a private show in your basement with all
your buddies over and despite all the emotion and excitement and the clinking of
glasses somehow the sound is still absolutely fucking perfect.
The
chord progressions are all pretty standard, but there is a reason 4-5-1 chord
progressions are so common; because they sound great.
The
Murphys sing about partying hard and fighting injustice and they do both with
equal gusto.
The
album begins with “Walk Away,” a
powerhouse track about a man abandoning his family when things get tough. The
track is a hard topic, and the Murphys take no prisoners here, or at any other
point on the album.
There are
many hard-rocking tracks, among them “The
Outcast,” “Buried Alive” and “As One”. There are also more traditional
Celtic tracks where the production is stripped down and more narrative (“World Full of Hate”, “The Dirty Glass” and “Fields of Athenry” which are just as
awesome, only different.
Soft or
hard, all the songs benefit from Al Barr’s signature angry but melodic voice
that sounds like a cross between Johnny Rotten and the Corries. They also
benefit from some amazing bagpipe playing. The bagpipes are a tough instrument
to work into the mix of any pop song, but the Murphys have always been masters
of it. Here they are played by the very capable
Spicy McHaggis. This would be Spicy’s last album with the Murphys, after which
he is replaced by Scruffy Wallace. I assume in order to play the pipes for the
Murphys your first name has to be an adjective. But I digress…
Back to
this record, which has very few weak points. “Buried Alive” is a heartbreaking tale of a mining disaster, and “Worker’s Song” always pulls at my blue
collar roots, as it reminds us of the many (often anonymous) sacrifices the
working class has made over the centuries.
“Worker’s Song” is originally a folk song
by Ed Pickford, rocked up by the Murphys as only they can do. They give similar
treatments to the traditional “Black
Velvet Band” and a seventies folk song by Pete St. John called “Fields of Athenry.” This latter song is
about a man imprisoned for stealing food during the Irish famine. It is
heartbreaking and in the hands of the Murphys more than a little angry as well.
It is very hard to enjoy the Pete St. John original once you’ve heard the
Murphys fill it with electric guitar, glorious unison singing and (of course)
bagpipes.
“The Dirty Glass” is a great duet between
a drunk and (I think) his bar which owes a lot to the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York” but still manages
to be fresh and new. Like “Fairytale…”
it is a song that is good fun on the surface, and tragic underneath.
The
final song on the album is the hilarious (and not at all tragic) “Kiss Me, I’m Shitfaced,” a song about
all the dumb things you’ll say and do while trying to impress a girl after
having one too many pints. Lines like this:
“I can bench-press a car, I’m an
ex-football star
With degrees from both Harvard
and Yale
Girls just can’t keep up, I’m a
real love machine
I’ve had far better sex while in
jail”
Aren’t
likely to get you laid, but damn they’re funny.
Even
more important, this album features the song “Time To Go” which is about my favourite hockey team, the Boston
Bruins! With a chorus of “Go go, black
and gold!” it is hard not to fall hard for this record honouring the
greatest hockey franchise of all time (yeah, you read that right – get your own
blog if you disagree).
The boys
pay homage in the song to the subway line you take to get to the stadium and
also to the Bruins’ long time anthem singer, Rene Rancourt. It is all around
good fun, at least for me. This song used to play on my EA Sports video game
and I loved hearing it as the Bruins won the virtual cup. When we won the real
one in 2011, I played it again. For that alone, this album will always be #1.
Best
tracks: Worker’s Song, The Outcast, World Full of
Hate, Buried Alive, The Dirty Glass, Fields of Athenry, Bastards on Parade, As
One, Time To Go, Kiss Me I’m Shitfaced
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