You can’t go wrong with a bit of Dropkick. They’ve been around on the periphery of your perception – if you are in Scotland anyway – since the beginning of recorded sound. “Homeward” is their umpteenth album and it, like so many of their other albums, will likely be unjustly ignored by the great British public.
I wouldn’t go so far as calling Dropkick some kind of Scottish national treasure for they do have a tendency to draw their songs out to the limit of naturally occurring melancholy with “Butterfly”, for example, picking up the pace only as a afterthought to the band’s otherwise continual inward reflection. I’m not really complaining though as Dropkick, unlike so many of their contemporaries, still practice what they preach and have not lost themselves in the forest of verisimilitude that seems the natural home of many a Scottish band.
Dropkick do however stretch themselves from time to time though with hints of a future seven minute plus epic obvious throughout the sub five minute “When It Starts” and with a proper investigation into the many facets of anguish within “It’s My Life (Not Ours)”.
“Homeward” runs true to what Dropkick have done before but perhaps they still have a concept album in them somewhere? I’d like to think so.
“Homeward” is available from Bandcamp.