Born & Bred Records

By Anthony Benigno

Like any punk band worth their salt, the Dropkick Murphys live are loud, rude, and crude, which makes for great mosh pit antics but has the unfortunate effect of drowning out their (well-constructed) music in sound and fury. So the most remarkable thing about their live record, “Live on Lansdowne, Boston MA,” right off the bat, is how fantastic the whole thing sounds. The production on the album is phenomenal; the songs sound rawer and rock harder than they do on the studio record, yet listening to them is a much softer experience than if you were actually at the show.

Recorded during their six-day, seven-show stand in Beantown on the week of St. Paddy’s Day 2009, “Live on Lansdowne” captures the Murphys at their most powerful. The track list favors the songs over band-audience banter, so it’s tough to get a sense of the group’s fabled camaraderie with its fans. An easy mistake to forgive here, since the album is a catchy listen all the same.

There are a few things to nitpick at. Sometimes the mix exaggerates the Murphys’ Celtic accoutrements over the rock n’ roll ones (Tim Brennan’s guitar gets shafted early and often by the tin whistle and pipes), which doesn’t work as well as you might expect. The accordion on “The State of Massachusetts” is jacked up to 11, which makes the song sound more like a pirate jig than the welfare-anthem it happens to be.

Luckily, there’s little time to dwell on the record’s faults, since the Murphys are barely out of one song before they blast into the next. Fan favorites like “The Dirty Glass,” “Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ya” (the heaviest thing here) and “Captain Kelly’s Kitchen” sound great, and singer Al Barr’s craggy voice sounds full and powerful on the album’s best track, “Bastards on Parade.” The whole thing is a ride worth taking despite its polarizing heaviness – the album barrels along its 20-track length with no respite for the weary but is accessible enough for non-fans as well. By the time hell breaks loose on the finale “I’m Shipping Up to Boston,” you’ll either be begging for mercy or a bona fide believer.