The first Dropkick Murphys album, Do or Die, was an amazing album. I still listen to it. The five or six CDs they’ve released since then pale in comparison. Not only that, but they seem to be getting progressively worse. They have a good formula. It’s fun to sing along with their anthems. The songs are catchy and tough, sometimes funny and sometimes poignant. They still take the best elements of the Pogues and the Clash and the Business and make it sound good. They’re just not covering any new ground, and they’re not developing as a band. If I heard this album and I’d never heard anything before by the Dropkicks or by any other band that sounds like the Dropkicks, I’d really like it. But I have heard Do or Die and I have heard all the bands that have influenced the Dropkicks and all the bands that the Dropkicks have influenced, and Blackout just sits in the middle of that pile. It’s not bad. To tell the truth, I kinda like it as background music. Mostly, though, these guys are too talented to wallow in the mediocrity that they’re wallowing in.
–sean (Hellcat)