FIRST IN A TRILOGY

GREEN DAY- UNO

 

 

 

I've been aware of them since they broke, Green Day roped me in with their "concept" albums, the two musical sagas that were American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown.

 

It seems natural that after two long concept pieces, Green Day would come back with a bite-sized offering that harkens back to their Warning and Nimrod days, and in fact, part of me wonders if some of these tracks were culled from sessions for the scrapped Cigarettes and Valentines album.

 

¡UNO! is the first in a series of three releases coming out between now and early 2013, and seventies influences (Cheap Trick, The Kinks, and The Clash) are plentiful. Musically, I like this albumn a lot, but, sadly, the lyrics are somewhat banal and laced with enough F-bombs to convince you that the band has Tourette's.

 

The guitar riffs have a garage-rock style that falls somewhere near the intersection of heavy guitar pop and punk, and musically this is a very lisetenable effort.

 

I'd be more interested to see where this trilogy goes if the lyrics had matured a little with the band.

 

OH LOVE