Green Day’s 11th studio album ¡Tré! is their third in six months, alongside ¡Uno! and ¡Dos!, the other two albums in a trilogy. It is moderately pleasing at best, and slightly bland and same-y at worst, almost entirely lacking the bite of their best work.
Green Day had a golden run for 15 years or more, releasing some of the best albums of the nineties and noughties, including 21st Century Breakdown (2009), American Idiot (2004), Warning (2000), Nimrod (1997) and Dookie (1994). The band is still certainly capable of producing quality music, but the soaring heights of their former glories are not to be found here.
The album opens with Brutal Love, which is an enjoyable but forgettable slower track while the singles X-Kid and The Forgotten (the latter released as a promotional single for the latest Twilight abomination), are fairly standard offerings which lack the punch of vintage Green Day. In fact, The Forgotten pretty much belongs on a Twilight soundtrack. There, I’ve said it. One of the best moments comes with Dirty Rotten Bastards, a faster, punchier track featuring Billie Joe proclaiming ‘I’m on a bender / It’s one for the ages’, asking age-old questions like ‘What the fuck does O.K. stand for?’ and ripping up some suitably punk-rock solos.
All in all you’re left wondering if the band overstretched themselves by trying to release three albums’ worth of material so close together. There’s enough there to make one solid Green Day record, but no more.
BY JOSH FERGUS
Best Track: Dirty Rotten Bastards
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: THE ATARIS, MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK
In A Word: Disappointing
