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Green Day returns with a new collection of short punk-pop anthems that harkens back to their 90’s roots. ¡Uno!, the ninth album in the Oakland punk trio’s illustrious 25-year career and the first in a trilogy of albums, is adequate, but ultimately fails to recapture the magic of their classic albums.
After the rock operas of American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown, the band takes a simpler approach to ¡Uno! It kicks things off with the catchy and energetic “Nuclear Family,” one of the album’s better songs. Most of the other songs follow the same formula of pop-punk, which would be fine if it was not so contrived by the end. While I didn’t love 21st Century Breakdown, it at least had variety. Of course, there are exceptions; the most notable of which is the Rapture-esque dance-punk number “Kill the DJ,” a song that appears to be an attack on modern pop music. It’s certainly catchy, but the “attack” comes off as rather trite.
Unfortunately, the same can be said for much of the album lyrics-wise. It is a side effect of referring back to previous works for inspiration. The songwriting seems less sincere than it did back then, probably because the band members are no longer in their 20’s. The new songs about young love and the like are a bit of a regression from their past political and societal themes.
I thought about what other Green Day album ¡Uno! feels most like, and eventually concluded that that album is their 2002 album Shenanigans, which was decent considering it being a collection of B-sides, compilation tracks and cover songs. I feel that the idea for an album trilogy spawned out of a reluctance to cut any songs during the recording process. ¡Uno! serves to support that theory.
That said, an average Green Day album is still a solid effort. The songs are catchy, especially with the poppy love tune “Fell For You,” the sea-shanty chorus of “Oh Love” and, of course, the aforementioned “Kill the DJ.” ¡Uno! may not rank among Green Day’s best works, but it’s still an enjoyable listen. Besides, they still have two more shots.
6/10
Courtesy of images5.fanpop.com