Review Summary: I just wanna save you while there's still something left to save
Green Day may be the only golden age pop-punk band who were victims of their own ambition.
American Idiot deserves as much praise for kicking off an era of freewheeling, conceptual albums in the genre, concurrent with blink-182's
Untitled, as it does criticism for its overindulgences and inconsistencies. Later albums in this wave would either top it at its own game (
The Black Parade and
The Mother, The Mechanic, and the Path) or fall victim even further to the same blunders, like Say Anything's messy slog
In Defense of the Genre or Yellowcard's awkward
Lights and Sounds. But Green Day especially seemed less elevated by their ambitious swing than trapped inside it, forced to follow it up with increasingly bloated snoozers with less quality control, this pressure presumably the reason their best work afterwards was released as the side project Foxboro Hot Tubs. There's no need to recap the resulting ups and downs of their stabs at irreverence with the trilogy and
Revolution Radio except to say this:
Saviors takes the best parts of both and blows them the fuck away, a return-to-punk that simultaneously honours Green Day's history of arena-friendly alternative rockers, full of adrenaline and feeling. A mere four years after the execrable
Father of All Motherfuckers, it may qualify as a minor miracle.
Back behind the boards, producer Rob Cavallo - who crops up so much in Dan Ozzi's fantastic history of the genre,
Sellout, he probably deserves some kind of punk knighthood - has eliminated the self-indulgent excess of
21st Century Breakdown and the plastic overproduction of
Revolution Radio, instead opting for a fuller sound that sounds for all the world like he just got Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool together in one room and let them jam the fuck out. It works wonders on their long-flagging energy levels, the band burning through
Nimrod-esque rippers "Look Ma, No Brains!" and "1981" like men twenty-five years younger, Cool absolutely wailing at the end of the superb "Coma City" like he's possessed. Armstrong in particular is revitalised behind the mic: whether balancing a frank self-evaluation of his struggles with alcohol on airtight power pop gem "Dilemma", bringing to life one of his most transcendental hooks in years on "Goodnight Adeline" or pushing his voice to surprising lengths on "Bobby Sox",
Saviors is a timely and efficient reminder of why he was once considered the greatest frontman in the game.
There is admittedly a feeling of damage control lurking under all those power chords. This is a band who knows full well they hit rock bottom and want to reel you back in, frontloading album and single campaign with a shameless
American Idiot throwback and we're-still-punk thrasher back to back, both songs forcing in an abrupt reference to suicide like not a day has passed since
Warning dropped. It's a significantly less elegant kick-off than other recent revival success stories, like Fall Out Boy's sweeping "Love from the Other Side" or blink-182's phenomenal "ANTHEM PART 3" - the album doesn't really find its footing until the chorus of "Dilemma" kicks down your goddamn door. In fact
Saviors' major flaw is that it never really settles into a groove the way Green Day's best work does, instead pingponging back and forth between unexpectedly energetic foot-tappers - "Strange Days Are Here to Stay" sounds like the long-lost cousin of discog highlight "86" - and ballads like "Suzie Chapstick" and "Fancy Sauce", bizarre dreamy songs that almost tap into the long-gone folky energy of
Warning.
It's a small price to pay for another good album from this trio, if not an outright side effect of them throwing everything at the wall just to see what sticks for the first time since
Nimrod made that approach look like art. Really it's just wonderful to hear Green Day have some fun again. Even the godawful "One Eyed Bastard" - one part "Holiday" verse, one placeholder chorus, add "So What" riff and undercook till ready - put a real smile on my face at last week's listening party. Picture a record store full of early listeners from all walks of life, bopping their heads and singing "bada bing bada boom" with their best Tony Soprano inflection, every person there fully aware of how dumb it was and not a single one concerned. There's plenty of stupid stuff to be found on Saviors, from "Bobby Sox"'s 'what if Weezer was bisexual' energy to the words "I got a robot and I'm fucking it senseless" somehow making it past the demo stage, and it all varies from actively great to oddly charming. The Green Day of the late 2000s would have avoided the silliness at all costs, and ten years later they were forcing it like someone had a prop gun filled with silly string to their heads. This newly confident iteration just let it come naturally when it comes, knowing full well it's always been in their DNA. Here's to one of pop-punk's best, aging gracefully, even if there were a few false starts on the way there.
