Green Day - Saviors
Featured album from our weekly newsletter #09-2024 (March 2024)
Saviors is the fourteenth studio album by American punk rock band Green Day, released in January 2024 via Reprise Records.
Formed in 1986 in Berkeley, California, Green Day is one of the best-selling bands of all time, with more than 70 million records sold worldwide. Their 1994 breakout album Dookie, which sold over 10 million, is widely credited with popularizing and reviving mainstream interest in punk rock, catapulting a career-long run of hits. Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool having passed the age of 50 are still making music together and touring.
Producer Rob Cavallo returned to work with the band on their new album Saviors, having produced their classic albums Dookie (2004) and American Idiot (2004). The results show with a lift in energy and calibre of material with this new album compared to their previous release, Father Of All Motherfuckers (2020).
The album opens with the high energy “The American Dream Is Killing Me” which is a frustration cry about the unrealistic expectations about how perfect American society would be in the modern world as they sing “…The American Dream is killing me / People on the street / Unemployed and obsolete / Did you ever learn to read the ransom note? / Don't want no huddled masses / TikTok and taxes / Under the overpass / Sleeping in broken glass…”. The song is tight with a great riff and underpinning melody, that works as an earworm.
“Look Ma, No Brains” and “Bobby Sox” are also strong tracks as is “Dilemma” an ode to the challenges of falling in and out of love. Side A closes out with another rollicking rocker “1981”, a look back at the birth of MTV, the cold war and environmental activism.
The second side opens with the forlorn “Goodnight Adeline” and “Corvette Summer” is an old school rocker channelling classic Cheap Trick / Thin Lizzy vibes. Two of “The Captain’s” favourite tracks are “Suzie Chapstick” and “Father To A Son” which has a great melody and string arrangement, adding a rich texture to the core guitar, bass and drum instrumentation.
The title track “Saviors” is terrific and Billie’s vocals sound like something lifted from the late 1960s in the versus before breaking back into the chorus as he sings “…Calling all saviors tonight / Make us all believers tonight / Calling all strangers tonight / Will somebody save us tonight?...”.
The closing track “Fancy Sauce” starts out emotively with vocals and stripped back guitars before bringing in the full rock sound to the catchy chorus, and then building up to an instrumental guitar led crescendo to complete the album.
All in all, Saviors is a fantastic album and return to form for Green Day. The album has a nice variety of songs, pace and level of intensity with great melodies, hooks and lyrics that show they haven’t lost their pop punk roots, whilst still having something to say along the way. Well worth a spin.