Dropkick Murphys : The Gang's All Here

Dropkick Murphys : The Gang's All Here

1999

Hellcat Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1.  Roll Call  2. Blood and Whiskey  3. Pipebomb on Lansdowne  4. Perfect Stranger  5. 10 Years of Service  6. Upstarts and Broken Hearts  7. Devil's Brigade  8. Curse of a Fallen Soul  9. Homeward Bound  10. Going Strong  11. The Fighting 69th  12. Boston Asphalt  13. c  14. The Only Road  15. Amazing Grace  16. The Gang's All Here


I remember this album coming out when I was in college...I liked the previous year's "Do or Die" and then when I caught news that a new album had dropped I was stoked...Then a friend of mine warned me they had changed vocalists...Mike McColgan was out and Al Barr was in..."Ah, what the hell, " I said to myself, "I'll check it out..." I plunked down my $18.99 at Camelot music and walked away with "The Gang's All Here"...

To me, the big change here is that all the Irish malarkey is gone and replaced with a military theme...Not a modern military theme, mind you...There's no depleted uranium or ISIS here...Just cannon balls and muddy, bloody trench warfare...It's actually a really cool concept that yields some fantastic results ("Wheel of Misfortune," "Devil's Brigade," "10 Years of Service")  and some corn ("The Gang's All Here," "The Fighting 69th") but man, is Al Barr ever a boring singer...He's more of your standard gruff shouter that attempts McColgan-esque cartoonishness here and there but loses his nerve every time...Ken Casey has suddenly become the most charismatic person in the band, stealing the album with his gritty love-song "Upstarts and Broken Hearts " and his fucking awesome portion of "Wheel of Misfortune" which wrings a ton of drama out of a violin appearance... You have to ask yourself, was Al really necessary? Couldn't Ken just become the singer and have one of the existing band members handle backups? Oh well...Again, Al's not bad, he's just not especially interesting either...A non-entity vocal-wise...

 That said, "Boston Asphalt" is a damn classic...Even Al seems perfectly at home here...Maybe this was the best use of his skills...No method singing for some high-concept, just bruising, plainspoken street punk...Yea, he nails it here...Thankfully, DKM would ease up on the concepts a bit after this album and Al would fit in a bit more...

 To be honest, I kinda checked out on the band after "The Gang's All Here"...My DKM collection has a lot of holes in it after this album, as you'll see in the upcoming days...I'd say check out this album for "Boston Asphalt," "Upstarts and Broken Hearts," "Wheel of Misfortune," "Devil's Brigade," "10 Years of Service" and the bonus track of nagging voicemail messages (which manages to be the most entertaining part of the whole album)...Actually, now that I think about it the voicemail messages are entertaining enough to warrant a purchase...They make me really glad that I'm not Rick...

Here's "Boston Asphalt" by the Dropkick Murphys...Enjoy...