•
Rating: Green Day is the band I grew up with. Many will assume a look of disgust, many will fuel the usual genre-based criticisms (are they punk or not?), and others have already made up their mind regardless; I listened to the album carefully, even though I had little hope given the not-so-exciting tracks released before its debut.
A new Green Day album is always anticipated, despite the few sympathies of people who fight a daily war against the mainstream. 70 million albums sold worldwide in almost 25 years of career is an excellent resume for the Californian band.
The first of a trilogy made following 21st Century Breakdown (2009), which had modest success compared to American Idiot, Uno! is probably one of the group's worst albums. The return to the production booth of Rob Cavallo (chairman of Warner), producer of almost the entire Green Day discography, was supposed to contribute to giving a more balanced and less plastic sound than its predecessor; the result is a production that, in an attempt to give voice to all instruments, penalizes the guitars, reduced to a bland and marginal role, almost as if Billie Joe forgot to plug in the distortion.
"Nuclear Family" appears, in truth, a good start. The usual three shuffled power chords and a solo modeled on those of the early albums, when the band still played in the small bars of San Francisco. The following tracks, on the other hand, could be bonus tracks of the bonus tracks of Nimrod: "Stay The Night" opens with an embarrassing intro only to result in nothing. "Carpe Diem" is a ridiculous mishmash of clichés, both instrumental and lyrical, with the grave stone of self-citation weighing on its head (see "Suffocate"); with "Let Yourself Go" you feel you have Billie Joe in front of you shouting the f-word every two words to urge teenagers to party; "Kill The Dj" is cloying.
What also transpires from this album, beyond the lack of creativity in the instrumental part, is the (abysmally low) quality level of the lyrics. The single (flop everywhere except here in Italy) "Oh Love" is built with a ridiculous guitar riff and a first-grade text, not to mention the video.
The second part of the CD is indeed better, but the acceptable "Fell For You," the curious "Troublemaker," which might be worth noticing, the agitated "Angel Blue," and the nostalgic "Rusty James" are not enough to lift the fate of an inconclusive and mediocre album that even misses the previous one.
5.0/10
Loading comments slowly
Other reviews
By definitelyalex
"We wanted something bold, halfway between AC/DC and the early Beatles."
The first five tracks have an extremely high average quality, from the explosive opening of 'Nuclear Family' to the stadium rock of 'Stay The Night'.
By luigionio
Let Yourself Go is an explosion of that old fun punk that Green Day used to do.
Uno is not a Rock Opera, nor a masterpiece, but a simple album that sounds 'almost' like a bad Green Day album from the past.
By cicciopunkrock
"'Let Yourself Go' is the only true punk song in the entire trilogy, with a Nimrod/Dookie-style chorus."
"'Fell For You' is a song I find useless and filler, with a whiny and distressing chorus."
By RiseAgainst
"The real problem with Uno! lies with the listener’s ear."
"‘Let Yourself Go’ is the most punk rock song on the album, actually, the only one on the album, which I find somewhat sad."
