Everybody’s favourite pop-punk rock superstars are back! And what’s that? They have three albums coming out in sucession? Complete with those Spanish expressions of exclamation! Yes Green Day have returned, but the real question is, what are they bloody angry about this time? Billie-Joe isn’t ‘fucking Bieber’ but he is addicted to an anonymous ‘substance’, so what’s he seething about from the depths of the rehab cell that he is assumedly in? Well, not a lot it seems, actually.
Now call me foolish, but after American Idiot and that… other one, I thought we could safely assume that the Green Day we all used to know, those guys who sang about masturbation and having the time of their life (not the same song) were dead; but they are back, with more power chords than you can shake a Blink-182 record at.
Is this a good thing? You tell me. If you like songs that sound relatively similar, mildly angry lyrics about ‘drinking angels piss’ (opener ‘Nuclear Family’), and naughty expletives (scattered carelessly over the album) then you’ll love it. Personally, I found that the album fits nicely into that horrible gap between good and bad (I believe they call it average). The songs are ok, but they seem to just blend into each other; I bid anyone to listen to ‘Fell For You’, ‘Loss of Control’ and ‘Troublemaker’ in succession and then genuinely tell me they sound different. It feels like the album needs a comma, a breather in the form of a ballad, and God knows the band can produce them (’21 Guns’, ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’, ‘Good Riddance’, and so on). Such an emotional break would put the songs in context and distinguish them from each other. The tunes are exciting but, as any crack addict will tell you, the excitement weakens and you need more. Who knows, perhaps ¡Dos! and ¡Tre! will contain songs of different genres and the world will rejoice in some sort of perfect behemoth of a triple album whilst I sit in the corner eating my words.
However, that isn’t to say the album doesn’t have its good points. The songs are by no means bad they just tire. Stand out tracks ‘Kill the DJ’, ‘Sweet 16’ and ‘Oh Love’, all let the power chords sit down and take a breather, allowing the emotional and lyrical impact of the lyrics to run through. ‘Oh Love’ is particularly brilliant, varying between fast and slow and pitching more hooks than a meat cellar. It seems that the best is saved until last; hopefully a quality that will continue into follow-up ¡Dos!.
In summary, the album isn’t bad, even if it was I’d be too scared to say so after Billie Joe’s recent (21st century) breakdown; it simply suffers at the hands of repetition. The album is better enjoyed in short bursts; stick a song on here, stick a song on there and you’re laughing. Perhaps people will love ¡Uno! and deem it a return to form. Objectively, it is a return to the bands previous sound, but this certainly doesn’t mean a return to quality. Here’s to hoping that ¡Dos! and ¡Tre! mix it up a bit.
5/10
