“The agenda is to search and destroy/Ain’t no one gonna kill my joy.” So snarls Mike Ness on the title track to Social Distortion’s first album in 15 years. Let’s call it a mission statement, because Born to Kill is the sound of a band fired up with a renewed sense of purpose. The follow-up to 2011’s Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes is the album that almost wasn’t. In 2023, midway through recording, Ness was diagnosed with Stage 1 tonsil cancer. Sessions stalled as he underwent a year of treatment that took him to places, physically and psychologically, he’d never been—which is saying something, considering his two-fisted tales of hard living earned the band its stripes in the SoCal punk scene and beyond. “Grateful” is a word the newly christened grandfather uses often, particularly when talk turns to Social Distortion’s eighth studio album. Grateful to be alive. Grateful to be surrounded by family and friends. Grateful to plug back in with a band he’s fronted for nearly half a century. As the mission statement promises, the four-piece has unleashed some rock ’n’ roll animals just for the occasion. Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and David Bowie all make appearances in lyric and spirit. And that title track is everything its name implies—a searing slice of ’70s thunder. But this is Social D, and as Grammy-winning producer Dave Sardy (Oasis, The Who) was surely well aware before stepping behind the console, a Social D album always serves its punk rock with a healthy dose of roots rock. Which explains “Crazy Dreamer”, a sweet, classic country duet with Lucinda Williams, pulling up alongside powder-keg cuts like “No Way Out”, “Tonight” and “Partners in Crime”. It also clears up the presence of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”, where Ness and co. excavate a previously undiscovered layer of heartbreak. Speaking of which, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ Benmont Tench is also on hand to warm things up with his Hammond B3. Born to Kill isn’t a reinvention. It’s the next chapter in a dime-store paperback filled with stories of winning, losing, loving and living enough to sing the songs the way they were meant to be sung.