The Warrior's Code (CD - 2005)

Dropkick Murphys: Marc Orrell (vocals, guitar, accordion); James Lynch (vocals, guitar); Ken Casey (vocals, bass guitar); Matt Kelly (vocals, drums, bodhran); Al Barr (vocals); Tim Brennan (acoustic guitar, mandolin, whistle, accordion); Scruffy Wallace (bagpipe).

Personnel: Laura Casey (viola, cello); Anders Geering, Doctor Charles Steinberg, Julie Cordeiro, Jeff Horrigan, Lance Burnett, Josephine Lyons, Tommy O'Connell, Tom Madden, Peter Chase, Bill Janovitz, Bronson Arroyo, Lenny Dinardo, Johnny Damon, Mark Rogoff (background vocals).

Additional personnel: Dr. Charles Steinberg, Jeff Horrigan, Sara Stevenson, Julie Cordeiro (background vocals); Peter Chase, Bill Janovitz, Laura Casey, Bronson Arroyo, Lenny Dinardo, Johnny Damon, Mark Rogoff.

Audio Mixers: Dave Westner; Jim Siegel.

Recording information: Q Division, Somerville, MA (06/2004); The Outpost, Stoughton, MA (06/2004); Woolly Mammoth Studios, Boston, MA (06/2004).

Photographer: Paul Harries.

Like The Pogues before them, the Dropkick Murphys successfully combine traditional Irish music, (lusty, barroom choruses plus accordion and bagpipes) and punk rock (choppy guitar riffs, speedy drumming) into the kind of Celt-punk that's at the heart of their fifth album, THE WARRIOR'S CODE. Amid the folkie "Captain Kelly's Kitchen" and "I'm Shipping Up to Boston," (based around previously unreleased Woody Guthrie lyrics) and Australian troubadour Eric Bogle's anti-war anthem "The Green Fields of France," modern-day punk energy is a constant.

Scruffy Wallace's aforementioned bagpipes fuse well with James Lynch and Marc Orrell's raging guitars on a title track dedicated to Massachusetts welterweight "Irish" Mickey Ward, while the raucous "Wicked Sensitive Crew" makes light of the DMs being "touchy feely sensitive guys." Most touching is "Last Letter Home," an homage to Sgt. Andrew Farrar, a die-hard fan who died serving in Iraq (the band played at his funeral). minimize