First things first

Unfairly or not, I've always lumped Green Day in with Good Charlotte, Blink 182 and the rest of the light-rock/punk bands I listen to when I'm in the mood for mindless head-banging. That's not to discount their musicality of course - there is an art to creating music that inspires violent rocking of the cranium and there is something about no-holds-barred power chords and flippant swearing that inspires respect (for its sheer enthusiasm at least!). Further than American Idiot however - whose musical significance and enjoyability I will happily agree with - my Green Day experience is pretty thin on the ground.

Enter a lovely young reader whose devotion to this very band inspired me to dip into a collection of albums that would normally have passed me by (yup, that's you Jesse!), and you find me pressing play to the first of Green Day's latest offerings, ¡Uno!...

Album: ¡Uno! 
Artist: Green Day
Label: Reprise
Release date: September 21, 2012
Peak chart position/sales: (AUS) #3, (US) #2, (UK) #2 Gold

RATING: 3/5 stars

Green Day have mellowed. No, they haven't grown beards and unplugged their guitars (heaven forbid they ever do), but the ageing process is showing.  Armstrong hollers "Carpe diem the battle cry /Are we all too young to die?" with overtones of midlife crisis. Sweet 16 harks back to the first meeting of a spouse with happy nostalgia and rough romanticism. Kids are mentioned. There's a booming ode called Oh Love that goes for over 5 minutes. And the music is a little...well, safe.

"Safe" of course means plenty of rocking good tunes, raucous vocals, visceral lyrics ("Hey! I wanna get inside of you /I wanna crack your cranium delirium /on the lower east side of your mind") and a hella lot of power chords. This is Green Day as you've heard them before, with a few forgettable tracks in between and many that drag a little. Nuclear Family follows the same musical formula as American Idiot to pleasing effect, Angel Blue and Let Yourself Go are standard rockers, while overtly violent (but undeniably funky) Kill The DJ toes the line of tiresome with its repeated tagline.

But each track begins with such reckless drums, or provocatively chugging guitar distortion, or both going hell-for-leather all at once, that the slightly stretched final chorus of the previous number pales into insignificance as you adjust your dance groove to fit the infectious beat of the current song. At best,  this is a rehash of what Green Day does best, at worst, a slightly uninspired album whose simplicity wears thin at the ends. None of it, however, stops Uno! from being loud, feckless and rather crazy fun. Turn the volume up, please.

Is it worth my $$$? - New to Green Day? Go back to Dookie. If the charts are anything to go by, Uno! is the best of this latest trilogy, but Green Day fans probably already have them all in their pocket anyway.

Listen to: Let Yourself Go, Sweet 16

Coming up... Dos!