Dropkick Murphys

The Gang's All Here

By PopMatters Staff

cover art
 Amazon
 Lala

Black 47
Live In New York City
(Gadfly)

by Sarah Zupko
dropkick-black47.jpg

Anthemic Irish rock is in good hands if these two bands have anything to say about it. Dropkick Murphys’ modus operandi is raucous, hard-driving Irish pub punk. Rancid fans will be all over this bunch of laddish, frenetic speed-fests with the Tim Armstrong-ish vocals, minus Rancid’s ska fixation. A charmfully, mangled, punked-up “Amazing Grace” only adds to fun, wild ride The Gang’s All Here guarantees.

No less energetic, but decidedly less punk, New York’s Black 47 is one hell of a party band. Live In New York City is being released on St. Patrick’s Day, which is only appropriate for a band that drenches its straight-ahead rock in Irish folk instrumentation, complete with tin whistles, uilleann pipes, and bodhran. 

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