Rebels With A Cause and Kicked To The Curb adhere to this formula pretty rigidly, while Sandlot almost feels like an Against Me! track with some frayed acoustic guitar bashes around the edges, and First Class Loser even adopts a country rollick.Īgain, this is really nothing new, but the decisive factor of …Pain & Glory‘s quality is its immense feeling of community and brotherhood. All of these elements remain natural bedfellows, and the band have clearly tapped back into the same ragged vigour of their standout material for …Pain & Glory. Likability is probably the key factor here, because the Murphys’ formula has remained virtually unchanged – punked-up shanties with whistles and accordion and drunken choirs backing Ken Casey and Al Barr’s coarse, unrefined bellows. The gang chants and misty whistles of introductory track The Lonesome Boatman are harmless but unnecessary, but following that is the Murphys with all of their best traits accentuated – hoarse, hearty, lager-fuelled and likable to a fault.

Thankfully, 11 Short Stories Of Pain & Glory is the sound of a band getting back on the horse in spectacular fashion, though not from the word “go”. On the flipside, it’s also incredibly easy to ignore, such has been the case with the Bostonian’s last couple of releases, not bad albums by any stretch, and it’s hard not to get swept up in the Celtic punk they’ve put their name to, but they felt perfunctory more than anything else, and largely forgettable in the long term.

In the Dropkick Murphys’ case, the piece of furniture they can be compared to most is an old pub chair – slightly weathered and beer-stained, but still as functional as the day it was built. Punk bands of the Dropkick Murphys’ vintage tend to be viewed as part of the furniture nowadays, never really making a huge impact in the long run but still putting an album out every couple of years to satiate the fanbase.

Dropkick murphys albums cover