History is full of “what if questions”. What if JFK wasn’t assinated? Would the US have got so intangled in Vietnam? What if Al Gore had won the Florida re-count? Would we be in Iraq today? What if Mike McColgan hadn’t left the Dropkick Murphys to join the Boston Fire Department? Well the first two questions I can only guess at. Yes, we would have got as deeply involved in Vietnam and it would have been as messey. And no we wouldn’t be in Iraq but we’d still be in the shitter. The one question I can answer with certainty is the DKM’s would have followed up “Do or Die” with something that would sounds pretty similiar to “Savin Hill”. In fact it’s closer to “Do or Die” then anything the Dropkicks have done in a while. This is fifteen tracks of fist pumping, chant-it-out, punk anthems that bring alive Savin Hill (also known as Stab’n’Kill,) the tough blue collar Irish-American neighborhood that Mike calls home. Possiably, the best rock’n’roll album I’ll hear this year.

September 2003