Album review: Green Day – Saviors

By DAN SOUTHALL

Everyone who knew Green Day before they exploded with American Idiot knows they lost some kind of fire with that album, growing into exorbitant ego and bloated music that was as dull as it was boring, creating in its wake an apathy for releases from the band or statements in general from them. Finally trying to rediscover whatever made Green Day ‘them’ in the first place on their last album, they still managed to drop the ball with the fake anger and mis-directed jokes, to be PC safe unlike their early releases as snot-nosed punks who didn’t actually care what you thought of them.

This new album is here to (hopefully) correct the wrongs of the last 200 odd years of bloat and ego. The one-two of “The American Dream Is Killing Me” and “Look Ma, No Brains!” both show a deft knack for pop Green Day once displayed and a healthy dose of the much missed piss and vinegar they once built their reputation on.

The album continues in this refreshed vein of pop punk goodness until they slow it down, first with “Dilemma” – not yet the sap and drivel they’ve been feeding to those willing to listen without any prior knowledge of their roots. That’s left for “Goodnight Adeline”, an album handbrake and another boring piece of sugary turd that Green Day has found fame with. Put up against the likes of “Coma City” that follows it up quickly, it is obvious just how unnecessary a track like it is.

Despite its slight wobbles here and there, Saviors sounds feels like a band rediscovering the joy in simple straightforward music with a healthy dose of sarcasm and a dash of piss and vinegar. What would be great from here is if they knuckled down on this new found vein of form and rushed out another album or two like this before it all goes to pap again.

Buy Saviors