The MOTHERS of REINVENTION
Green Day have always been, first and foremost, a punk rock band. This would seem to be stating the obvious. But it’s also been clear that the spiky-haired three-piece from California’s East Bay don’t fit easily into the genre’s confines. Consider 1997’s smash acoustic ballad (and enduring high-school prom anthem) “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” or 2004’s politi-rock opera concept album American Idiot. At the very least, cast your mind back to 2010, when that multi-Platinum-selling, Grammy Award–winning record became a full-blown Broadway musical.
Of course, singer and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool have shown as recently as 2016’s Revolution Radio that they’re still capable of churning out turbocharged, three-minute, three-chord anthems with unbridled energy and emotion. But no one who has followed Green Day all these years would expect the band to stay within those confines for long. As Armstrong says, “I think that for Green Day, the one thing that sets us apart is that we get away with more experiments than most bands that come from punk rock.”
As for Green Day’s newest experiment, look no further than (Reprise), the band’s boldly named and just-as-boldly played 13th studio album. While the record is jam-packed — 10 songs in under 25 minutes — with the sort of laser-cut riffing, precision-throttle rhythms, hooky melodies and airtight arrangements that have long characterized Billie Joe and Co.’s work, there’s also something new at play this time out. For starters, check out Armstrong’s falsetto-fueled vocals on the garage-rocking opener, “Father of All…” There’s also the laconic hip-hop blues jam “Junkies on a High,” the Joan Jett–sampling stadium stomper “Oh Yeah!,” the “Mony Mony”–like album-closing rave-up “Graffitia,” the Motown-soul groover “Meet Me on the Roof” and the early rock and roll/R&B freakout “Stab
