In "God Willing," the Murphys, of course, don't truck with subtlety: "Whether living without hope / Or at the end of the rope / It isn't written in stone / When the future's unknown / And though some do atone / Through no fault of their own / They fall through the cracks / And get left by the wayside." It's a hostile world we live in, and a particularly ravenous hostility consumes South Boston.

And from "Vices and Virtues," there's this: "Whisky, war, suicide and guns…The next one took his life / They said there was never any hope / He was shocked and institutionalized / Found hanging from a rope."

It's a hardscrabble, violent life growing up poor and alcohol-sodden in South Boston, and Dropkick Murphys have survived, with a few personnel changes here and there, to sing about it, or scream at it. This is a no-punches pulled record. Sadness and tragedy preside over this little part of god's earth, and that's just the way it is.

Now, you can decide to make all this tragedy a lullaby, but that'd be a different band and a different sound. The Murphys confront all this madness with an energy that has some fight behind it: yeah, life's a bitch, but let's not swoon over it. Let's take a baseball bat and beat the immortal shit out of self-awareness.

But a good way to finish this off — we're all fated anyway — is to look to family; the very thing that gets torn apart in this rough and brutal world is the very thing, the only thing, that matters. The final track, "Never Forget," puts an end to it all: "To all the single parents / Who keep holding down the fort / To all you sons & daughters / Be thankful for what you've got / To everyone with no one / May good fortune turn your way / To everyone who's had someone / Remember them today."

The Meanest of Times is an aggressive, uncompromising work. You're not likely to forget it, in doses small or large.