ALBUM REVIEW: Dropkick Murphys – Okemah Rising
(Dummy Luck Music/[PIAS])
Dropkick Murphys made a very different album indeed for last year’s 11th studio effort This Machine Still Kills Fascists.
With singer Al Barr on leave of absence caring for his ailing mother, the band took the opportunity to scratch an itch by making an all-acoustic album.
Rather than their usual rowdy Celtic folk-punk, it was country-tinged folk, based on previously unpublished lyrics by ’40s and ’50s US singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie.
It was one of my favourite albums of 2022 (reviewed here), and the band’s latest offering, just seven months later, is basically part two, recorded at the same Tulsa sessions with producer Ted Hutt (Flogging Molly, The Gaslight Anthem, The Bouncing Souls).
Again it’s a very enjoyable and thought-provoking album, even if its 10 tracks don’t have quite the same impact as This Machine… because they’ve done it before.
Dropkick Murphys have made a fine job of bringing to life Guthrie’s timeless lyrics standing up for the working man, railing against injustice, calling out fascists and championing the rights of black people – a very bold move at the time.
Special guests
My Eyes Are Gonna Shine is a suitably uplifting opener, and the band are joined on second track Gotta Get To Peekskill by the first in a series of special guests, folk-punk band Violent Femmes.
The feisty song, released as a single, references the rioting sparked by the Ku Klux Klan’s opposition to a concert by black singer and activist Paul Robeson in New York in 1949.
Fellow Boston rebel Jesse Ahern guests on Rippin Up The Boundary Line, which celebrates the end of racial segregation, while country songstress Jaime Wyatt sings the female part on Bring It Home, the salutary tale of philanderer Bill Jackson, who gets his just desserts.
Working to live
Lead single I Know How It Feels sums up the misery of working to live as Casey sings “I know how it feels to work ‘til you drop, and it’s 10,000 bills that you owe.” Sadly, these words still ring true during the current cost of living crisis that is making life so tough for ordinary working people.
The melancholic When I Was A Little Boy, featuring some gentle acoustic guitar, subtle accordion and tin whistle, sees Casey crooning about having to grow up fast and learn how to fight for your rights, while Run Hitler Run is a strident anti-fascist anthem.
My favourite song here is probably Watching The World Go By, about the workers who lived on and off the land while helping to build America. “I been working on a new road, I been working on a railroad, but I can’t ride on neither” are some of the most powerful lines on an album packed with them.
For me, the only mis-step here is I’m Shipping Up To Boston (Tulsa Version), which adds nothing to their original 2005 interpretation of Guthrie’s lyrics, as featured in the hit move The Departed, which paved the way for the band’s mainstream breakthrough.
On the whole, Okemah Rising is a very worthwhile addition to the DKM’s canon of work, and if you liked This Machine Still Kills Fascists then you’ll like this too. But can we have Al Barr back for the next album please? 8/10
- Okemah Rising is available on CD, LP, digital and streaming services worldwide, with the vinyl version featuring an exclusive track, Talking Hard Work.
- Fans who pre-ordered the album from the band’s webstore HERE get a free limited edition 7in single featuring acoustic versions of DKM classics Barroom Hero and Skinhead On The MBTA, recorded live on their recent tour. These are exclusive and will not be sold at retail.
