Street Dogs

State of Grace (Hellcat)
by Scott Hefflon

Boston’s second favorite Irish/street punk band return with their fourth studio release, first for Hellcat (’bout time they got on a label that might actually DO something for them). Stevo believes former Dropkick singer Mike McColgan’s working class stance, and given his firefighter/Gulf War experience, perhaps I should too. And yeah, there are some damn catchy songs here, and the harmonies and group shouts do sound more “let’s all get together and sing” versus “I’ll bet we could get some radio play if we did some harmonies here.” Evidently, the difference between a lousy generic-sounding genre band and an enjoyable generic-sounding genre band is honesty or purity or whatever.
(www.hell-cat.com)