Green Day - !TRÉ! (2012)

So here we are, the third and last album in the trilogy by the pop-punk band Green Day. The previous two albums was both having minor punk intentions and some horrible choices when it comes to expanding the bands sound. In other words, the two predecessors to "!TRÉ!" was far from impressive. So it is now up to the band to man up and show that they still have some great puns left in their yet unreleased musical catalog.

Now this album was supposed to be released in approximately January or February next year but the band chose to push the release a little earlier since the compilations with Billie Joe and the drugs. For fans of the band it is a blessing from above. But for me it is just a faster way to get rid of the pain of listening to this trilogy. But I remained positive before listening to "!TRÉ!", and thank god for that. I cannot imagine how angry I would have become if I heard this album when I was in a bad mood. So where should I start? Well, "!TRÉ!" is at least not expanding the bands horizons as much as the two previous albums. You will recognize Green Day in this album. Unfortunately, it is more pop than punk in these songs and even worse, you probably have heard these songs before. No innovative riffs, recognizable drumbeats and deja-vú moments everywhere. It just bores the crap out of me. It is like the band just did not care to make new songs and just copied old songs and putting in new lyrics. That is probably as low as you can get when you get to creating songs.

Let us now look at the songs that did the most impression on me. First of is "Dirty Rotten Bastards" which reminds me of a long and tempo shifting song from "American Idiot" (like "Homecoming" or "Jesus of Suburbia"). A pretty decent song that is one of few bright spots on this album. Another one of those bright spots is the following track "99 Revolutions", the only song that shows some speed. But otherwise there is nothing that is showing as an advantage for Green Day. For instance, did you know that the concluder, "The Forgotten", is on the soundtrack for the latest Twilight movie! That is enough for me to loose all respect for the band (well not all but at least 90%) and a perfect reasong to give this album a low rating.

I think Green Day has bitten more than they can chew. Releasing three albums in such short notice is a bold, but foolish, thing to do. "!TRÉ!" defenitely shows that the band was running out of ideas at the end. There is only one advantage with "!TRÉ!". It does not have any horrible songs like the last two albums had. But just because it does not have songs that makes the ears bleed it does not mean that it can get away with having dull deja-vú songs. Finally, if you are going to make another album trilogy Green Day please take your time and make sure that you make three different albums instead of three similar ones.

Songs worthy of recognition: 99 Revolutions, Dirty Rotten Bastards

Rating: 3,5/10 X-Kids