Green DayThe final instalment in Green Day's trilogy of albums released over a three-month period caps off what has been a bold move for the band. With frontman Billie Joe Armstrong in rehab and not able to promote the albums or potentially explain the band's motivations for the ambitious releases, the 37 songs that are spread across the three would have made for one good, not great, Green Day release. The band described each album as sounding sonically different, with ¡Dos! meaning to be garage rock, whilst ¡Uno! more of a power pop release. ¡Tre! sounds like its predecessors mulched together.
But Green Day are always going to sound like Green Day; the production qualities are the same, the songwriting isn't as diverse as promised, but with that in mind, there are some good tracks here. 8th Avenue Serenade shows signs of blissful decadence, whilst X-Kid sees a reasonable attempt at trying to move away from that 'Green Day' sound. Dirty Rotten Bastards elicits the kind of behaviour that might see Armstrong back in rehab – a brash 'fuck you' punk number. The album's opener, Brutal Love, focuses on a classic '60s ice cream change chord progression complete with layered harmonies for effect.
With this release it's hard to imagine what the band could dream up next to give them the next shift in the public's conscience: concept albums? tick; trilogy of albums? tick; rock opera? tick. How can a band that hasn't challenged their audience since American Idiot stay relevant? Stay tuned, as I'm sure the marketing machine will churn out some new absurd way to capitalise on the band's enormous fanbase. By the way, ¡Tre! is an album for Green Day die hards. The songs are good, but have all been heard before.
