Jake Mahr
Arts Editor
After 25 years of creating and performing music, it is amazing that Green Day can still entertain hundreds of thousands of fans today. However, with the band’s recent release, “¡Tré!” (preceded by “¡Uno!” and “¡Dos!”), Green Day certainly won’t be gaining any new fans.
“¡Tré!” doesn’t exhibit any new evolution in Green Day’s sound or style. The members still portray their usual punk rockiness without getting too hardcore, and the album adds nothing of notice to the band’s lengthy repertoire.
Green Day was formed in 1987 by lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool. The group is often credited with revitalizing a mainstream interest in punk in the United States.
Green Day’s first success was their 1994 album “Dookie.” The band’s 2004 “American Idiot,” helped reunite the group with a younger audience, and 2009’s “21st Century Breakdown,” achieved the band’s highest level of commercial success thus far.
Disappointment on “¡Tré!” is due in large part to the fact that the first track, “Brutal Love,” exhibits some new-found originality. While it may not be Green Day at its finest, it sets a precedent for the rest of the album, which doesn’t compare to its opening. The song takes advantage of a horn and string section, adding a different dynamic compared to much of what Green Day has produced in the past decade. It leaves its listeners wondering where all of the passion went on the rest of the album.
After “Brutal Love,” “¡Tré!” begins to go downhill quickly. “Missing You,” the album’s second track, begins with heavy guitar and loud smashing drums. This is nothing new for Green Day, and listeners begin to lose the hope gained in “Brutal Love.”
On top of the lack of ingenuity in “Missing You,” the group decided to throw in cheesy breaks throughout the song to make it seem as if they were recording live in a studio. Later in the song, Armstrong then plays an acoustic guitar, which causes the song to lose all of its force and power.
“Sex, Drugs & Violence” sounds so mistakenly similar to “Missing You” that a double take is necessary to make sure the album didn’t skip back, and it only adds to the dullness of the album.
Green Day was also unable to put much variety within the songs themselves. Tracks like “Amanda” and “Little Boy Named Train” are simply boring. They consist of simple three or four-chord guitar riffs, annoyingly loud drums and lyrics consisting entirely of repeating choruses, furthering the desire for more differentiation.
“¡Tré!” ends with the five-minute piano ballad, “The Forgotten,” which it is indeed. Unfortunately, listeners’ ears are still ringing from the rest, and “The Forgotten” fades into the background.
Green Day will not be making many new fans with “¡Tré!” The band did not try hard to produce an album with originality and stuck to its punk roots. “¡Tré!” is available in music retail stores and on iTunes for $9.99.
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