Revolution Radio

On their 12th studio LP they’re dialing down the excess, and the result is a focused set that rocks as fearlessly as their Gilman Street glory days.

It all makes for their most coherent album since 2004’s American Idiot.

Revolution Radio isn't just hot nostalgia. It reflects decades of accrued emotional and musical wisdom.

Tumult and desperation ignite the music on Revolution Radio. It’s the group’s first batch of new songs since “Uno! Dos! Tré!,” the three-disc surfeit of more straightforward tunes released in 2012. Those songs were built around snappy catchphrases and brisk, punky riffs. Green Day’s new ones aren’t so easily summed up, but they can roar through their contradictions.

As a simple collection of songs, it’s as strong as anything they’ve come up with since 2004’s ‘American Idiot’.

Radio also is the most intensely personal Green Day album in years; as much a celebration of life on the upside of 40 as it is a reminder of the choices, conflicts and contradictions that mark a life well-lived.

Revolution Radio is Green Day back at their best. [Nov 2016, p.104]

Revolution Radio, the band’s solid but sometimes unfocused new album, can’t stop looking to the past, to the present, anywhere but the future.

By scaling back from the overambitious sentiments of albums since 21st Century Breakdown and returning to the simple yet effective power chord structure of earlier Green Day, the trio manages to make Revolution Radio both personal and timely for a country going through the same sense of dislocation they themselves have all too recently experienced.

Perhaps both the best and worst you can say about Revolution Radio is that it sounds exactly like Green Day. [No. 137, p.55]

The engrossing full-album reprise Forever Now gives an insight into frontman Billie Joe Armstrong’s booze and pills-induced 2012 meltdown, but otherwise Revolution Radio is more melodic air-punching about guns, gas and the American nightmare. File under: Ain’t Broke.

Though there are several issues that inevitably drag it down, this is a good record that finally proves the band is willing to move upward.

Green Day have nothing more in mind than righting their ship, and that's precisely what they do.

Revolution Radio, happily, shares more with the zestier (and earlier) likes of Nimrod. [Nov 2016, p.28]

Revolution Radio is a loud, energized power-pop album in moody punk clothing. It sounds pretty goddamn radiant when it’s playing and leaves little impression when it isn’t.

It’s with a sense of relief then perhaps that Revolution Radio, whilst feeling a little like a pastiche of their forms selves, sees the trio steering a steadier course on more reliable ground.

There is nothing groundbreaking among these 12 new tracks and it never reaches the heights of American Idiot--which remains the trio’s high-water mark--but there is much to be admired in the simplicity of Green Day’s return.

“Outlaws” is a surprising Revolution Radio standout, recalling some of the delicate, Queen-influenced moments from My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade—sensitive music that feels large. The rest of the record varies.

There are a handful of tracks here that are more memorable than anything on the 2012 trilogy. But it’s hard not to compare Green Day to several of their long-running fellow punk acts who’ve released strong records in 2016.

There’s still a tendency for things to get a little sixth-form common room, particularly in the empty sloganeering of the title track (“legalise the truth”; “anti-social media”), but it’s good to see that there’s life in the old punks yet.

Though Armstrong does a decent job of speaking for the freaks and the rebels, Green Day's music is always at its best when he's speaking for himself, and Revolution Radio is no different.

There are some cringey bits, the title track relying a little too much on well-trodden punk tropes, the vocals ‘Still Breathing’ not as vulnerable as the lyrics might warrant, and ‘Youngblood’ a bit of a mis-step. If punk’s 50th anniversary has shown us anything, it’s that many old rockers grow old, go soft and give in. On that count, if not all, Green Day are faring pretty well.

On Revolution Radio, his more personal songs are far more endearing.

Armstrong continues to lean on lyrical phases that sound clever but don't say much. Still, the album includes several strong character sketches. [Nov 2016, p.88]

Revolution Radio otherwise rarely escapes the Green Day archetype, an established language that, here, feels inelastic and calcified.

Aside from Billie Joe’s willingness to open up on more troubling personal issues, of which he only hints, the majority of Revolution Radio is all sheen and no spark.

Revolution Radio plods its way down roads the band first stomped on years ago. In a career filled with euphoric highs and honorable lows, this might be the first album that sits exactly on the middle of the scale, dipping its toes into every possible outcome but refusing to dive in and embrace either comfort or chaos.