"The boys are back and they're looking for trouble," boom the Dropkick Murphys, a raunchy Irish-punk septet from the Boston area on the aptly titled opening track, "The Boys are Back" of their newest album, Signed and Sealed in Blood. And that song is a phenomenal "sum-upper" of the new release, which hit the shelves on Jan. 8. The Dropkicks, bassist and lead vocalist Ken Casey, lead vocalist Al Barr, guitarists James Lynch and Tim Brennan, bagpiper Josh "Scruffy" Wallace, mandolin player Jeff DaRosa and drummer Matt Kelley, strive to sound triumphant and excited on the album, not focusing on any complex concepts or lyrical motifs. Most of the album, vocally, sounds more like bar chants recorded in local Bostonian bars than anything else.

The album rip-roars through 12 tracks over the course of 40 minutes, barely stopping to rest. The Dropkicks have gained recognition as one of the loudest and most aggressive bands in the current rock world, yelling and almost chanting about loving Boston and their Irish and Celtic heritage on every single song.

Signed and Sealed in Blood certainly retains that same classic Dropkick Murphys sound, containing both straight punk jams like "Don't Tear Us Apart" as well as inherently Irish bar-singalongs like "The Boys are Back," "The Season's Upon Us" and "Jimmy Collins' Wake," many of which pull from classic Irish melodies. Because of this strategy, some of the Dropkicks' songs, especially on Signed and Sealed in Blood compared to previous albums, become somewhat repetitive aurally. The second track, "Prisoner's Song" greatly resembles a slightly more Irish-bar version of the Dropkicks' biggest hit, "Shipping Up to Boston."

Unlike the band's last record, the conceptually rigid 2011 release Going Out in Style, which chronicled the life of a working class Irishman, Signed and Sealed in Blood pushes to be unstoppably catchy, fun and exciting from beginning to end. However, the issue with the recent trend regarding alternative rock bands supposedly "returning to their punk roots" (case in point: Green Day) seems to be a lack of focus. These groups, the Dropkick Murphys included, try so hard to sound like they are having a blast, simply cranking out quick punk singles instead of focusing on writing truly great music. Thus, fulfilling this trend, Signed and Sealed in Blood has very few standout tracks the likes of the Dropkicks' earlier massive hits "Shipping Up to Boston," "The State of Massachusetts," "Tessie," and "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ya," making the album slightly less accessible.

The strongest and probably most poetic track on the record is without a doubt "Rose Tattoo." The song features Mumford & Sons' Winston Marshall on banjo and is a classic Dropkicks ballad about Irish pride in the gruff, working class life. One of the slowest on the entire album, "Rose Tattoo" is the catchiest and most poetic track, and the most unlike the rest of Signed and Sealed in Blood. Thus, "Tattoo" sticks out above the other songs on the album, but still fails to reach the bar of some of the Dropkick Murphys' classics. As formerly mentioned, Signed and Sealed in Blood is mostly composed of fist-pumping bar anthems delivered with a choir of chanting and yelling whereas nothing about "Rose Tattoo" even remotely fits such a description.

The Dropkick Murphys aren't known by any means as an "album band," one that demands that albums are listened to in their entirety based on depth of overall composition and thematic continuity. On the contrary, the Dropkicks are rather known to blast through speakers like a bunch of friends loudly reminiscing and celebrating together, delivering albums with lots of fun tunes but only one or two truly mind-blowing power-singles. Signed and Sealed In Blood certainly follows this path and shows that the Dropkick Murphys have by no means lost their touch and only brings hope to all fans of these Irish boys from good ol' Bean Town.