GREEN DAY: Father Of All... (ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

In the mid-1990s, the walls of teenage bedrooms were generously lined with Green Day posters. The punk trio had published their manifesto "Dookie", carried by their unstoppable anthem "Basket Case". Billie Joe Armstrong, the band's singer and guitarist, then wrote long concept albums where the punk spirit gave way to an aggressive (perhaps more respectable) pop-rock sound. After a shower of awards and a triple megalo album, the dashing singer ended up in a detox centre. Released in 2016, ''Revolution Radio'' presented itself in forty minutes as a luxury best of where Green Day paid tribute to his different periods but with original songs. Although this album gave Armstrong and his cosmonauts a new lease of life, its formula only gave him a reprieve to get back on the road. Also at the time of the release of "Father Of All Motherfuckers", one could fear a relapse.

Those who had been annoyed by the band's pretension to offer long albums could paradoxically reproach them for being a bit stingy this time. This new opus aligns ten tracks for a duration of... 26 minutes! Without any doubt, Green Day makes a return to its roots at a time when it only cared about efficiency. 'Father Of All Motherfucker' opens on a heady and dynamic note, two adjectives that characterise the Californian band's sound, for an album that doesn't bother with power build-up and on which the trio fires a continuous salvo of ammunition (as on the thrilling rock 'n' roll 'Stab You In The Heart'). Billie Joe Armstrong's vocals, which could sometimes annoy, find here an adequate expression, tender, skillfully distorted by the reverb, catchy and always as raging as ever. His boosted guitar doesn't hesitate to get out of the fray (a little solo on the eponymous track). His two colleagues offer us a drum kit that makes no concessions and an incisive bass.

Fortunately within this over-charged ensemble, we find some welcome dissonances. If it is not preponderant, the use of organs and keyboards is however the sign that the band wants to be unpredictable. 'Oh Yeah', which samples the chorus from Gary Glitter's 'Do You Wanna Touch Me', stands out in its verses for its dryness of tone which is answered by the bass riff of 'I Was A Teenage Teenager'. With 'Meet Me On The Roof', Green Day recalls the days of 'American Idiot' (the cover of this album parodies this classic). The final track is a little more experimental, at the crossroads of pop, rock and glam. One could regret the absence of an evanescent ballad that the band had made a specialty of, but Green Day having clearly wanted to thwart the expectations has accomplished its mission.

This Green Day new formula was favourably received in the USA (4th on the Billboard) and also took the leadership in the English charts. 'Father Of All Motherfuckers" is a tonic and catchy collection of ten songs that will make you want to play the album over and over again and get drunk on its dangerously communicative energy. - Official website

GREEN DAY

FATHER OF ALL...

REPRISE

ROCK