The Mighty Mighty Bosstones Knock One Out of The Park With New Album When God Was Great

4.8 out of 5 stars

WHEN GOD WAS GREAT by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones sure is a refreshing album to listen to. In a time when so many albums come out and disappoint, it is great to know that The Mighty Mighty Bosstones can come in and save the day.

This album kicks some major butt, and the song “I DON’T BELIEVE IN ANYTHING” (all songs have all caps on this release...why?...BECAUSE!) is probably one of the absolute best songs that the Bosstones have ever released.

I also really enjoyed “LONELY BOY” and the title track “WHEN GOD WAS GREAT” a lot too. The first being a bit more of a laid back song about lead singer Dicky Barrett’s trips to Jamaica and the latter being a nostalgic throwback song about being Catholic kids growing up in Boston.

Now, I am not religious, and I don’t see this as a religious album in any way even if the title suggests that. For me, it almost seems like the theme is a progressive movement that struggles to let go of the past (which is sort of the struggle for all middle aged people). So, the mindset seems to shift between, “This is the way I want it,” and, “This is the way it was.” 

This leads to some confusion as far as to what some of the messages really mean, but if you didn’t look at the whole album as a collection of songs there to give you life advice in a coherent manner, and you looked at each song individually, it makes a lot more sense.

That’s the way I choose to look at it, because I have yet to see The Bosstones put out a political concept album. They literally just write what comes to them. 

Songs like “THE KILLING OF GEORGIE (PT. III)” and “I DON’T WANT TO BE YOU” are definitely political statements about the clash of partisan politics in a time when even close friends can’t see eye to eye or come to a middle ground anymore.

I have said it before, and I will say it again, you CAN’T FIND a bad song by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. It’s impossible.

The only song on this album that I wasn’t very happy with was actually the final track which is a mass collaboration song called “THE FINAL PARADE” as it is a lot more of a “We Are The World” type song but for the ska/punk genre. 

That’s not to say that it isn’t a fun song. It is. And I love Tim Armstrong and many of the collaborators. I just think that it should have been a single that was released on its own. It doesn’t totally fit the sound of the rest of the album.

I really like a lot of these songs, and you can tell just how professional the Bosstones really are as it seems like they can just go away for a few years and then come back with an absolute great album like this one.

One other totally side benefit of this album is that if you are planning to do a 1-hour workout, you can put this album on for the whole workout as it fits the uptempo for a great workout, it sounds great, and the run time for the whole album is 58:34. A glorious way to spend an hour. 

This album signals the first time they have released an album since moving over to Hellcat Records (the Epitaph offshoot), and it is their 11th studio album overall.

To be honest, I totally expected a falling off in this album, and I was very pleasantly surprised that this album is as good as any album they have ever put out (maybe with the exception of Let’s Face It which is still so well done it is one of my favorite albums of all time not just favorite MBB album).

This is only their second album in the last 10 years (While We’re At It was released in 2018 as well), and you would just think this band has been at it the whole time, because it is just so fluid. But the reality is that they may just be getting back to peak levels again. That's what excites me most about this album.

You got an hour? Get yourself pumped up by listening to this album.