Signed and Sealed in Blood is the eighth studio album by the Dropkick Murphys. The album was released on January 8, 2013 on the band's Born & Bred Records label. The album debuted at No. 9 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, the third highest debut for the band. The album has produced four singles including "Rose Tattoo" and "The Season's Upon Us", a Christmas themed song that became one of the band's more successful charting singles. "The Boys Are Back" and "Out of Our Heads" were also released as singles. A special 2013 charity version titled "Rose Tattoo" featuring Bruce Springsteen was released in response to the Boston Marathon bombing. The single reached #25 on the Rock Songs chart. "Prisoner's Song" has been heavily featured in commercials for Captain Morgan's liquor and in July 2017 it was used in the season 8 trailer for The Walking Dead.
Background
On August 31, 2012, the band announced the album's title and first single, "Rose Tattoo" through their Facebook page. The title of the album is taken from lyrics in "Rose Tattoo". The band asked fans to tattoo themselves with the new logo from the album's cover and send photos and videos to their web site by September 19, 2012. The images were used in the packaging for the CD and vinyl album. The album has sold 106,000 copies as of Sept. 10, 2013.
Musical style
Where "Going Out in Style" told the story of a fictional character named Cornelius Larkin—complete with an obituary written by Michael Patrick MacDonald for the liner notes -- "Signed..." has no such constraints. "This is just the opposite of that," bassist Ken Casey explains, "just us having fun and making the most catchy, singalong kind of songs we can. It's not that the last album wasn't fun. It was. 'Going Out in Style' is one of the records I'm most proud of, of anything we've done. But it gave me a couple migraines along the way, getting through that because everything was so connected. This time we cut loose." But he does feel that "Signed..." is also "almost a continuation of, in a musical sense. There's an upbeat, party vibe to it. A lot of these songs, we were having such a good time writing them and just enjoying the writing process. It's the quickest we've released an album, ever, after another." The group has been previewing some of the new songs during its Halfway To St. Patrick's Day U.S. tour, which wraps up September 21, 2012 in Boston. Casey describes the final track, "End of the Night," as "the closing time, kind of loser's anthem, about people who don't want togo home." The album also features a holiday song called "The Seasons Upon Us," which Casey promises "is definitely not some cheesy Christmas tune. It's about a dysfunctional family."
Critical reception
Signed and Sealed in Blood was well received by music critics. The album holds an average critic score of 77/100 at Metacritic, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Gregory Heaney of AllMusic gave the album four out of five stars called it "an album that's sure to please Murphys fans both old and new". At The Observer, Hermione Hoby gave the album two stars out of five, criticising it as 'hearty but slightly absurd'.
Track listing
Fans who pre-ordered the album through the band's website received MP3 download of the song, "The Season's Upon Us" as well as a digital download card with their order which included three exclusive songs. "The Season's Upon Us" was also released as a 7" single in special colors of red, green and white with the non-album b-side "AK-47 ".
