ALBUM REVIEW: Dropkick Murphys – This Machine Still Kills Fascists (Dummy Luck Music / PIAS)
After returning to form on 2021’s 10th studio album Turn Up That Dial (reviewed here), Dropkick Murphys present the follow-up, and it’s a very different record indeed.
In fact, it’s the most radically different thing they’ve done in their 26-year career, and it’s for that very reason that I love it.
It’s an album which is steeped in roots music, but not the Celtic punk for which the Boston rabble rousers are best known.
With vocalist Al Barr on leave of absence to care for his ailing mother, his bandmates unplugged their amps and made an album of country-tinged folk music.
Yes, you read that correctly. But This Machine Stills Kills Fascists is no ordinary album; it’s based on the lyrics of Woody Guthrie.
DKM founder Ken Casey calls Guthrie “the original punk – he went against the grain, he fought the good fight, he spoke up and sang about his beliefs.”
The album title pays homage to the powerful message Guthrie began painting on his guitars in the early 1940s, in the midst of the Second World War: “THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS.”
Of course the band have history with the ’40s/50s singer-songwriter and activist; they covered his song Gonna Be A Blackout Tonight on their 2003 album Blackout.
And their biggest hit I’m Shipping Up To Boston (featured in the Oscar-winning Hollywood movie The Departed) was based on lyrics found in his archive.
His daughter Nora was so impressed with it that she opened up his entire archive of unused lyrics and words to them, and the result is this wonderful record.
Over 10 tracks, we have an album which is by turns angry and defiant, proud and uplifting, but always from the heart, and it’s right up there with my favourite DKM releases.
It kicks off with the rockabilly shuffle of lead single Two 6’s Upside Down, while Ten Times More is in the style of a US military marching song, and will soon have you joining in with its clapping, stomping beat.
Waters Are A-Risin is the plaintive story of an American ship sank by an enemy torpedo during World War Two, but leaves you guessing whether there’s a happy ending for the crew.
With Barr absent, Ken Casey takes lead vocals throughout, duetting with country singer Nikki Lane on Never Git Drunk No More, the tale of a dysfunctional couple in the grip of the demon drink.
It’s a close relative of The Dirty Glass, one of the highlights of the aforementioned Blackout album, and is one of the standout songs on This Machine…
Another guest vocalist, Evan Felker of country band Turnpike Troubadours, trades lines with Casey on the jaunty The Last One, perhaps the most typically-DKM song here.
The wonders of modern technology see Casey ‘duet’ with Guthrie on another standout track, Dig A Hole, an anti-fascist anthem urging us to “dig a hole, dig a hole in the meadow, make a hole in the cold, cold ground, …. go lay those fascists down”.
But my favourite song here is All You Fonies, a rousing pro-workers, pro-union anthem featuring infectious gang vocals which will soon have you singing along.
This is a collection of wonderful timeless songs which have been brought to life by a band who have dared to do something different. I love it. 9/10.
- The good news is that Dropkick Murphys had so much material based on Guthrie’s lyrics that they recorded two albums, with Vol. 2 scheduled for release in 2023.
