Review Summary: Bigger, More Theatrical, and Underrated
After the absolutely incredible “American Idiot” released in 2004, it was damn near impossible to imagine what the next album would be like, what with “American Idiot” essentially perfecting the mature, heartfelt, and thought provoking formula the band has been growing into at that point—mostly starting with the underrated “Warning” in 2000. So, 5 years later, and we have this: an even bigger rock opera with 18 whole tracks that’s every bit as heartfelt as it is overwhelming. And that’s not just because of the sheer length of the album, but also because of how much variety the band managed to cram in here, because while we were excepting something, at the very least, somewhat similar to “American Idiot”, we got that AND a whole new music direction, as it goes for a much more epic, theatrical, and often tearjerking direction than anything they’ve done beforehand—even “American Idiot”. And, looking back, it works surprisingly well, even if it could have worked a tiny bit better.
It essentially takes a lot of what worked with their previous album, and tried to one up it, which also shows the writing prowess of Billie Joe Armstrong being challenged. You can definitely tell that he was doing all that he could to make something truly epic with these 18 songs, as it pulls for your heartstrings left and right. And while that may sound like a bad thing, the writing manages to still have enough hooks and emotional beats to still make it good from start to finish. Sure, most of the 18 tracks aren’t as deep as anything on “American Idiot”, but because of how ambitious and heartfelt they manage to be, they can come really close to being amazing at times—“21st Century Breakdown”, “Know Your Enemy”, “East Jesus Nowhere”, “21 Guns”, “American Eulogy”, and a few others being some of the bands best songs written in the past few decades. Mix all of that with the excellent as ever composition, wonderful production that’s not only crisp, but diverse, and the aforementioned memorable material aplenty, and what you’ve got here is an underrated gem that does a damn good job at following up “American Idiot”.
Still though, there’s one thing keeping this album being as good, and that’s a lack of any consistency. While the album is full of great stuff, it also has little idea of what it wants to be. As stated previously, the band seemed to have tried their hardest to one up “American Idiot” by making it bigger and more theatrical (and more sad). However, in doing so, the album suffers a bit by being a bit inconsistent, making it pretty challenging to sit through for the first few listens—not at all because of the music itself, but moreso because there’s just so much of it that has not much of a common theme. To be fair, that gives the album variety, and while I think they could’ve dealt with that better, everything else about the album is awesome.
Overall, it’s a shame how the legacy of this album turned out, what with it being forever in the shadow of its 2004 older brother, because while that album is still better, this is what I’d call the bands last truly excellent album, as it encompasses everything about the band and more at the time. It’s unfortunate how the album only has a 2.7/5 as of me writing this review, because while it’s not perfect, it does more than enough right to warrant a second chance. And if you ask me, I feel like this is an album that gets better with time. With that said, I definitely recommend this to fans of not only the band, but also alternative rock, as well, as you may see the light with the greatness this album brings, and if you get restless heart syndrome from it, you may know your enemy—though, thanks to this album, you’ll be having fun like it’s your last night on earth.
