Hi Maniacs ! Winter is coming [or already here, depending on where you live!] and let me tell you this, you won't get a better album than ¡Uno! to listen to while you take a long walk in your neighbourhood on a chilly November morning.
It is upbeat, it has that amazing bass by Mike Dirnt and the Punk Rock feel that Green Day , and especially Billie Joe Armstrong, is so famous for providing. ¡Uno! is radically different from their last 2 albums - American Idiot (2004) and 21st Century Breakdown (2009). It isn't politically-driven , or satirical of the modern era. This is the old Green Day but with the maturity that brought the best out of them in American Idiot.
At the iHeart Radio festival recently, BJA lost his temper on stage when Green Day's set was cut to 30min from 45min, and the timer showed '1 Minute Left'.It was later revealed on the band website that Billie is seeking help for substance abuse and that the outfit would have to cancel all of their promotional touring till further notice.
Get well soon, Billie! We love ya.
¡Uno! is a light-hearted album that you enjoy even when it plays in the background. The riffs and the solos sound very positive. Let's take a closer look -
¡Uno! --------- *********o [9/10]
The ball starts rolling with Nuclear Family, that gets off to a great start on guitars. That, coupled with a retro-sounding Bille , make sure you start getting warm vibes from the album already. There's a section where the bass line is pretty amazing and Boom! , a typical Green Day-ish solo follows.
Stay The Night is next. This song has an amazing chorus hook that makes you sing along with BJA. The typical bursts of power chords during the verse stay true to the legacy of punk rock.
Next: The follow-up to ¡Uno! => ¡Dos!
 |
| Album Art |
It is upbeat, it has that amazing bass by Mike Dirnt and the Punk Rock feel that Green Day , and especially Billie Joe Armstrong, is so famous for providing. ¡Uno! is radically different from their last 2 albums - American Idiot (2004) and 21st Century Breakdown (2009). It isn't politically-driven , or satirical of the modern era. This is the old Green Day but with the maturity that brought the best out of them in American Idiot.
At the iHeart Radio festival recently, BJA lost his temper on stage when Green Day's set was cut to 30min from 45min, and the timer showed '1 Minute Left'.It was later revealed on the band website that Billie is seeking help for substance abuse and that the outfit would have to cancel all of their promotional touring till further notice.
Get well soon, Billie! We love ya.
 |
| Billie Joe Armstrong at the iHeart Radio Festival |
¡Uno! is a light-hearted album that you enjoy even when it plays in the background. The riffs and the solos sound very positive. Let's take a closer look -
¡Uno! --------- *********o [9/10]
The ball starts rolling with Nuclear Family, that gets off to a great start on guitars. That, coupled with a retro-sounding Bille , make sure you start getting warm vibes from the album already. There's a section where the bass line is pretty amazing and Boom! , a typical Green Day-ish solo follows.
Stay The Night is next. This song has an amazing chorus hook that makes you sing along with BJA. The typical bursts of power chords during the verse stay true to the legacy of punk rock.
Green Day have packed in their ammo right at the start of ¡Uno!. Carpe Diem, another great track, continues the trend of catchy choruses. Tré has been flawless on the drums, with his blast beats and legendary drum rolls.
My favourite on the record is next. Let Yourself Go is an angry track that is perfect in all aspects. Brilliant start, flawless verse, a chorus to die for and a solo that makes you sit up. Billie even gets to scream to the background of muted guitars.
Can you see the madness in Billie's eyes?
Kill The DJ is not exactly like its predecessors, but it is bloody damn good. The melody stays in your head, and suddenly when you're in bed, hours later, you start humming it. And don't stop till the next week. The style is a bit different, but hey, wouldn't we still be in the Stone Age if it were not for experiments?
Fell For You brings us back to charted territory with music that is undoubtedly Green Day to the core.
In fact, I'd like to mention here that this album is as Green Day as it can get. No large-scale experimentation like A Thousand Suns(2010,Linkin Park) or a major deviation of genre like Path Of Totality(2011,KoRn) , but pure Green Day sound. And it works!
Loss Of Control confirms that we are in that region of the album where nothing exceptional is going to come up, but the music is still good to listen to and hum along to. ¡Uno! doesn't disappoint at all.
Troublemaker starts off great, but the chorus simmers down to a less than acceptable energy level and the song doesn't pick up.
Angel Blue gets that smile back to your face. The rhythm is pumping, the blast beats are making their presence felt.
I wasn't much of a fan of Green Day's work prior to American Idiot, and so I've always identified them with charged up music dismissive of the current era. But ¡Uno! changes that, and I'm loving this new facet of Green Day's music.
Sweet 16 begins where Angel Blue left off. A much softer track, softer vocals with ample melody.
Rusty James has a nice solo and the song is pretty peppy.It is songs like these that make you want to pick up that guitar and totally rock out! And with Green Day, you know you can headbang while playing the chords; they ain't that difficult *wink wink*.
The first single, and the last track of the album, Oh Love finally makes an appearance. Well, it's good, but I can't see why this was chosen as the first single. It gave rise to all kinds of assumptions about ¡Uno! that weren't always favourable. The tempo subsides a bit, but the quality of music doesn't. The solo is a thumbs up, as is the entire solid structure of the song. A great choice to end the album with.
I rate this album a healthy 9/10 and am looking forward to ¡Dos! .Here's hoping that it is a step up!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NEWS:
1. ¡Dos! will release soon. Looking forward to sampling it !
2.Because of the Billie Joe substance abuse incident and the consequent cancelling of Green Day shows, the band has preponed the release of ¡Tre! , the last album of the trilogy ¡Uno!-¡Dos!-¡Tres!
3. Linkin Park have been nominated for the MTV EMA for Best Rock. Good luck!
Update: Linkin Park went ahead to win the award. Congratulations LP!
Update: Linkin Park went ahead to win the award. Congratulations LP!
4. Adele deserves a special mention for her vocals on Skyfall - self-titled theme song of the latest Bond movie. Her voice is exceptional. It's so refined, so silky that once one dives into it's smoothness you never surface again. She's like a velvet quagmire. That's some good stuff you shouldn't miss.
5.KoRn guitarist James 'Munky' Schaffer has revealed in an interview that the band will be returning to metal with their next album. He doesn't rule out Electronic elements though.
Next: The follow-up to ¡Uno! => ¡Dos!
