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Review: Green Day - ¡Uno! [Album]

Warner Bros // "Not much new is taking place on ¡Uno! but they are displaying everything that made them a success"

by Huw Hopkins, September 19th, 2012 and has been Read 12028 times.
Last Edited by: Huw Hopkins September 20th, 2012.

Green Day have been around long enough to know how produce an album, so much so, they are making a trilogy. The number one rule they’ve stuck to since 1987 is you have to open with a bang, and the first instalment, ¡Uno! is no different.

The raw punk sound of ‘Nuclear Family’ does exactly what it should; gets heads nodding and feet tapping. By the time bassist Mike Dirnt has shown off, at the 90 second mark, Green Day will have first time listeners on their feet. The song closes with a 10-second countdown, opening the three-part album ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, ¡Tré!

For ‘Stay The Night’, the world’s most popular punk rockers change pace, as you would expect, before ramping up the overdrive again to enter the main body of the song.

A first instinct is joy, of hearing Green Day play 3 and-a-half-minute songs. Forays in to the dramatic American Idiot and the lengthy 21^st Century Breakdown were unique, and they secured surprising longevity for the punks, but listening to them for up to and over an hour could be hard work.


The chorus of ‘Carpe Diem’ is heroic and will duly inspire the next generation of college American football teams. With his tongue firmly planted in his cheek way, Armstrong, 40, sings “are we, are we too young to die?”

‘Let Yourself Go’ is passionate and angry, and displays the singer-guitarist’s vastly improved skill on his six-stringed instrument, in comparison to twenty years ago. The rapid angst of the track is a return call to arms for fans that left, when the turn of the century brought Warning. No longer do they need to feel the Californian trio have ditched their original East Bay sound.

WATCH // Kill The DJ

But with a big middle-finger to those returners who will shuffle back, claiming they never gave up on Green Day in the first place, ‘Kill The DJ’ adds another musical element to their impressive resume. Sprinkled with late 70s/early 80s British ska and squeezed in with 90s gangsta rap lyrical expletives, this aggressive but fun number could be the best song since ‘Basket Case’.

Not many bands can make a song romantic when it includes lyrics like “piss the bed”, but ‘Fell For You’ is one of ¡Uno!’s deeper compositions.

The evolution of Green Day over the past 25 years has been Darwinian, they haven’t attempted to sit on their reputation. Since 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours and the addition of drummer Tre Cool, each album has had something a little bit different. Sometimes it was the improvement in songwriting, as proven on Dookie and then Nimrod, other notable changes were the production standards on American Idiot. Not much new is taking place on ¡Uno! but they are displaying everything that made them a success.

‘Loss of Control’ is a trip down memory lane, for everyone who heads back home after growing up, bumping in to old acquaintances. Highlighted are the reasons you hated them and laughed at them so much. Prior to the final chorus, the crushing force of the music halts for an accapela chorus of “we’re all crazy, you’re all crazy now”, powerful enough to make your heart stop for its entirety.

The structure of ‘Troublemaker’ is reminiscent of The Network, a band that ‘screwed over’ Billie Joe when he ‘brought them over to his country’. The sliding guitar chords, throughout one of the shortest tracks on the album, are punctuated by the powerful drum thuds from Cool.

LISTEN // Angel Blue

Avid Green Day fans will have stumbled upon leaks and live tracks of the closely guarded trilogy; one of the more popular being ‘Angel Blue’. Several ¡Uno! songs suggest subtle nods to Billie Joe’s family. What would have been adolescent tales about himself, are now forewarnings to his own teenagers.

Despite what the title suggests, ‘Sweet 16’ fails to adhere to this, instead recalling his own memories of turning the tender age. One of the softer songs musically, it relates easily and should become a favourite of most album buyers if they don’t release the track as a single.

The trio have cemented their legacy, and ¡Uno! marks them now as a classic rock band. Suitably, ‘Rusty James’ has a classic rock sound, splurged with typical Green Day nuances. The familiar chord progressions and rhythms are redolent of the band’s greatest hits, and while it may not line-up alongside other beloved songs, the passion and production is clearly still alive.

WATCH // Oh Love

‘Oh Love’ is what most people will have heard already, as long as they are not buried under an avalanche worth of rocks. The video is teasing and purports the supergroup as all-star rockers. The slow methodical beat of the song’s main hook encapsulates much of the album’s sound, meaning if you weren’t disappointed when you heard ‘Oh Love’, you won’t be when you’ve heard the rest of ¡Uno!

The premise of the album trilogy seems pointless. As enjoyable as ¡Uno! is, there are no recurring themes and it is rounded off beautifully, so much so, you aren’t clamoring for a conclusion, let alone a second and third act. If ¡Dos! and ¡Tré! are as strong as the first installment, it will be a masterpiece of an idea, but if there is nothing unique about them, it could be a wasted opportunity.