In an age where bands like Simple Plan, Good Charlotte, and Sum 41 play redundantly over TVs and radio stations, the new Street Dogs’ album comes as a sigh of relief. Since their first release, Savin Hill, the band has been trying to bring punk rock n’ roll back to the world. Singing about a pride in their work and their town, it’s no shock to see the title of a song “In Defense of Dorchester” on their newest album Back to the World.

Fronted by the ex-Dropkick Murphys’ lead singer Mike McColgan, who has a voice that instills the very sense of punk rock, the band has been taking the nation by storm. The new album shows, I know it’s cliché but it fits too well, maturity. This CD has complex guitar riffs and classy drums care of ex-Mighty Mighty Bosstones drummer John Sirois, and these ingredients do not make a recipe for anything less than punk. It reminds me of old Dropkick Murphys, and how much I loved their first album Do or Die. With the song “Drink Tonight,” the Street Dogs make this live again in my heart and soul. It’s a fast punk song that makes me imagine the day of my first Dropkick show. Fast songs with loud guitars and vocals get right in your face to say what you got to do…start drinking. This track has Boston hardcore legend Eric Medina (Buddha) from Blood for Blood putting on some guest vocals. The album also has guest vocals by Joe Gittleman (ex-Bosstone and current bassist for Avoid One Thing). The next song “Stagger,” with its ska-ish/Jamaican intro, can only show the influences of the only band that matters, The Clash. Truly the Street Dogs are one of the last bands in Boston to sing about the things that Bostonians take pride in-the hardships of the city, the struggle for a job, and the struggle for an identity in your own town.

I recently saw the Street Dogs at the Blarney Stone in Dorchester for an acoustic set. It doesn’t matter if it’s acoustic or live, for a thousand people or just locals of Dorchester, the band gives energy to a crowd, gets the crowd jumping. To look around the pub and see a hundred people all from the same background as Mike McColgan is quite an emotional site. There were cops, firefighters, and people of all trade unions in the audience, all of who were there to support the spokesperson for their cause with lyrics such as, “What’s wrong with being treated fairly/Unions and the Law/We’ve got to defend ourselves somehow.”

The guitars are catchy, almost too catchy, which could be attributed to the band’s attempt to conform to pop punk-but it is not. The Street Dogs catchy guitar riffs don’t send teenyboppers running to the mall to buy their albums. The guitar riffs remind me of rock n’ roll bands such as Sinners and Saints, The Ducky Boys, and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones-the punk or punk/ska bands that have or still do liven the streets of Boston. My personal favorite song on the CD is the eleventh track, “Hands Down,” a song that talks of crime and the morality of a man hitting a woman in anger. Whether or not social injustices lay in union halls, at the state house, or in your own home, the Street Dogs bring it to light and show the right side, the correct side, and the moral side. The Street Dogs will be playing February 22 and 23 with Social Distortion at the Avalon on Lansdowne Street.