The Meanest of Times
Occupation
- Scruffy Wallace - bagpipes
- Matt Kelly - drums, backing vocals
- Marc Orrell - guitar, accordion, banjo, backing vocals
- James Lynch - guitar, backing vocals
- Tim Brennan - mandolin, accordion, banjo, tin whistle, guitar, backing vocals
- Al Barr - Vocals
- Ken Casey - bass, vocals
The Meanest of Times is the sixth studio album by the American folk punk band Dropkick Murphys. It was published in the German-speaking area on 21 September 2007 at Indigo.
Formation
The shooting began in April 2007 in the studio " The Outpost " in Stoughton, Massachusetts, lasted for 3 months, so that the recordings were completed in June 2007. In August 2007, the band released a version of the song Flannigan 's Ball on their Myspace page. The album itself was released in the U.S. on September 18, 2007, in Germany, it came on the market three days later.
Gained fame especially the song The State of Massachusetts, which is the theme song of the television series Nitro Circus.
Songs
The songs " (F) Lannigan 's Ball ," " Fairmount Hill " and " Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ya " based on traditional Irish folk songs, the lyrics of " (F) Lannigan 's Ball " (= " Lanigan 's Ball ") and " Fairmount Hill "(=" Spancil Hill " ) were compared to the original changed significantly. They each contain several references to places in the Boston area and people associated with the band.
" (F) Lannigan 's Ball " was recorded partly in the Westland Studios in Dublin. That song had Ronnie Drew from the famous Irish folk band 'The Dubliners ' and Spider Stacy of "The Pogues " with. The song is Drew's wife Deirdre devoted, which had died a few weeks before shooting. It was also the last song Ronnie Drew recorded before he died on 16 August 2008 at the age of 73 years.
Title list
Chart positions
Reviews
From the U.S. press, the album was discussed mostly positive, Metacritic calculated an average of 72 % of eight reviews and assigns the predicate gene rally Favorable (Eng. basically positive).
Corey Apar of Allmusic awarded four stars out of five and called the album as a typical album of the band, " that a typical pub atmosphere bring. "
From sputnikmusic.com, the album 3.5 out of five. Critic Mike Allen says that the band is not changed and neither have really improved nor worsened.
The German Critics rated the album mostly less positive. So rated Mathias Möller Laut.de of the album with two out of five stars and said that the consistent concept no longer rising in sixth album.
Also Plattentests.de gives four out of ten. According to Jochen Gedwien, who wrote the criticism, The Meanest of Times contained too many Füllnummern.
Occupation
- Al Barr - Vocals
- Ken Casey - bass, vocals
- James Lynch - guitar, backing vocals
- Marc Orrell - guitar, accordion, banjo, backing vocals
- Tim Brennan - mandolin, accordion, banjo, tin whistle, guitar, backing vocals
- Matt Kelly - drums, backing vocals
- Scruffy Wallace - bagpipes
- Ronnie Drew - singing in " (F) Lannigan 's Ball "
- Spider Stacy - vocals in " (F) Lannigan 's Ball "
- Halley Feaster - Cello
- Keith Dickerhofe - Cello
- Mike Calabrese - Cello
- Jeni Magaña - Percussion
- Matthew Edwards - percussion
- Andy Reiner - violin
- Armand Aromin - Violin
- Chris Baum - Violin
- John Kingslet - Violin
- Tim Weed - Violin