Review Summary: Green Day deliver the final chapter to their ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, ¡Tré!.
Following the Power Pop ¡Uno! and the Garage Rock ¡Dos! comes ¡Tré!, which is a mixed bag of all sorts. The album has many nods to albums throughout all of Green Day’s catalog, as well as artists such as The Who, The Beatles, and David Bowie. Many fans who expressed their distaste to the lack of Alternative Rock elements of 2000s Green Day in ¡Uno! and ¡Dos! will give this album a warm welcome.
The album opens up with the soulful “Brutal Love”, where singer Billie Joe Armstrong uses his vocal range to the full extent. Backed by horns and strings grandeur, this 60s style track is one of the best on the album. The strings return for the last track on the piano ballad “The Forgotten”, which gives a nod to “Golden Slumbers” by the Beatles. Green Day’s experimentation on this album exceeds that of any of it’s predecessors. However, sounds are also complemented with older ones.
“Missing You” is a great treat for those who loved the Pop-Punk gem “Scattered” off of 1997’s Nimrod. Green Day has excelled in Pop-Punk hits in the past such as “Basketcase” and “She”. The instrumentation is very simplistic, still great. Armstrong's catchy hooks and well written lyrics continue similarly on “8th Avenue Serenade”.
Like “Wake Me Up When September Ends”, Green Day again return with another somber Alternative Rock great. “X-Kid” is written about a close friend of Armstrong who recently committed suicide. “You went over the edge of joking/Died of a broken heart” he sings. “Walk Away” has been confirmed to be a re-recorded version off of the “stolen” 2003 Green Day album “Cigarettes and Valentines”, fitting well with the collection of songs on ¡Tré!.
The highlight of the album is “Dirty Rotten Bastards. Channeling the multiple-songs-in-one style of “Jesus of Suburbia”. With fast paced Punk riffs, funky bass licks, and guitar solos up the alley of that of “The End” by the Beatles, “Dirty Rotten Bastards” is the best song on ¡Tré!. The welcome return to the “American Idiot” and “21st Century Breakdown” style songs continues with “99 Revolutions”, a melodic-Punk tribute to the Occupy Movement. “We live in troubled times/And the 99 percent show that somethings wrong”.
Overall ¡Tré! is a great album, would have been the best in the trilogy if not for the cringe worthy, bizarre acoustic song “Drama Queen”. The willingness to experiment has gone from a snotty punk brats growing up and tackling a rock opera with “American Idiot”, to playing “Abbey Road” like piano ballads. Some may argue that Green Day is now washed up, but refreshing new sounds prove that they’re definitely not going anywhere.
