Green Day:Tre Cool,Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt use the bluntest of instruments.Warner Music
Sometimes you can judge a record by its cover. Fourteen albums into a career that exploded with a 1994 record named after excrement (Dookie) and a single about being too lazy and bored to masturbate (Longview),the trio that started as sneering,snot-nosed punks from the East Bay of San Francisco are now in their 50s. How does a band from that scene grow up but stay true to their roots? And how do pop-punk elder statesmen stay relevant?
Twenty years ago they answered that question withAmerican Idiot,a concept album that was politically charged and based on classic rebel-rock tropes,with a sound so anthemic it was turned into a stage musical. They’ve been chasing that high ever since with varied results,reaching something of a nadir on their last album,2020’sFather Of All Motherf---ers,an attempt at a pop record that attracted some of the worst reviews of their career. More than one critic,grasping for something positive to say,noted that,at 26 minutes,at least it was mercifully short.
WithSaviors it sounds like they’ve decided to use the bluntest of instruments to beat their way back into favour. The speaker-rattling sound is front and centre thanks to re-teaming with veteran producer Rob Cavallo,who has always brought out the best in the band. Opening song and first singleThe American Dream Is Killing Me is so Green Day – and so obvious – that it could have been written and recorded by AI. It’s all galloping guitars,rallying cries and slabs of overdriven guitar,with a video featuring post-apocalyptic zombies that would have been cool ifThe Walking Dead hadn’t already been around for almost 15 years.
Green Day’sSaviors:highlights and head-scratching moments.Supplied
It’s hard to deny that Billie Joe Armstrong knows his way around a sledgehammer riff and an air-punching shout-along chorus. And he does that well on1981,a sharp,frantic rocker with a naggingly catchy tagline (“She’s gonna bang her head like 1981”) and some cool turns of phrase (“she is a cold war and I’m East Berlin”.) A little later there’sSuzie Chapstick,featuring ’60s jangle and a natty descending melody that is more Lennon-McCartney than Strummer-Jones.
Both songs are highlights,but there are plenty of head-scratching moments here that could be generously described as homages,or less generously described as lifts. Surely there was someone at Green Day headquarters who could have had a word in Armstrong’s ear that the chord progression that opensBobby Sox is,like,pretty much exactly the same as that inLithium,by a not-totally-unknown band named Nirvana.
And there have already been online pile-ons aboutOne-Eyed Bastard,whose riff is so close to Pink’s 2008 hitSo What that you can’t see daylight between them.
Yeah,yeah,I know. There’s nothing completely new under the sun. But while I was listening to these new songs I was surprised by how often they appeared to be aping the sound of Weezer,The Offspring,The Hives,and – onGoodnight Adeline – even Oasis.
Green Day have recorded many of pop-punk’s best tunes,so when a band of their stature goes for the brass ring by playing alt-rock bingo it’s a deflating experience.
Perhaps they don’t care and just want to get on the radio by playing the “if you like that,then you might like this” game. Perhaps,like that kid on the cover,they’re just grinning,shrugging,and saying “Whatever,man.”
Green Days’sSaviors is out on Warner Music.
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