Once more back to basics, dear friends. Green Day may have strayed a little from the Welcome To Paradise path over the past three decades – into punk opera, grandiose rock balladry or, as on 2020’s last album Father of All Motherfuckers, garage rock’n’roll – but eventually they always steer back into their melodic punk hammer lane. Singer Billie Joe Armstrong has described their 14th album Saviors as bridging the gap between 1994’s Dookie and 2004’s American Idiot, and there it certainly sits; part hurtling punkarama, part political rock drama.
It’s a style that Green Day pioneered and epitomise, and they appear to be fitted with creative ankle tags stopping them wandering too far from it. Opener and first single The American Dream is Killing Me, held over from Father… to avoid making that album too political, firmly stakes out the territory. “My country under siege,” Armstrong sings in his gung-ho punk bawl, pinpointing the issues of unemployment, homelessness and conspiracy acceptance over swashbuckling stadium punk and chamber pop interludes.
