I suppose I would be doing Edinburgh band Dropkick a disservice by describing them as venerable but it is a fact that they have been together longer than I have been writing about music and their latest album “Balance The Light”, perhaps unsurprisingly, keeps close to the laidback guitar powered alt-country sound that has powered them for the last fifteen or so years.
There’s nothing wrong with giving the people what they want and Dropkick do just that with these ten songs proving capable of time travelling back into any of the band’s previous albums. This time, however, the band do seem rather more reflective even to the point of crossing the border, and “A Long Way to Go” is a good example, into the land of melancholy. That is likely just the cost of growing older and wiser but, equally, it does seem that there are more clouds than sunshine in the lyrics than a Dropkick aficionado might expect.
All things considered, “Balance The Light” is exactly the kind of album that you would expect from a band as consistent as Dropkick undoubtedly are.