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Dosey Dos

3 Out Of 5 Stars

After listening to all three of Green Day's trilogy of Uno Dos and Tre, I'm beginning to recall why artists will record 30 to 40 songs and then whittle them down to the best dozen. Dos is a good album with a fair amount of filler, balanced by some experimental sidelines. They still maintain a snotty attitude and can deliver hooks like mad, just as you can tell from "F-Time" and "Wow That's Load" attest. Although once again, the sing along of "F-Time" is marred by the juvenile quality of the song.

What's good is "Nightlife," featuring a rap from one Lady Cobra (who gets a song named after here for her efforts) and the melancholy "Amy." Or more specifically, Amy Winehouse, whose trial leaves Billie Joe Armstrong to lament "will you be my friend?" It's a telling story (like "Macy's Day Parade" from "Warning") made all the more ironic by Armstrong's trip to rehab. There's still plenty of frantic energy involved, but like I stated previously, what feels like an inordinate number of lesser quality songs. "Tre" suffers from the same fate. "Uno" is the clear winner, but you can pick songs from the samples and make your own best of.

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Uno a GoGo
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Green Day certainly aren't lacking for ambition. After two groundbreaking rock operas and a Broadway play, they decide it's time to revisit their roots of punk blasters. But not like they'll just rack up 12 songs and see what happens. "Uno!" is the first step in a rapid fire release date trilogy, with "Dos" and "Tre" to follow. The album is a machine gun zapper of the kind of songs that made "Dookie" a classic," with the band now sounding older loud and snotty instead of young. This is not a bad thing.

In fact, there are remnants of the Ramones that haunt a lot of these tracks, be it the immediacy of "Nuclear family" or the snap-to-it of "Let Yourself Go," that buzzsaw guitar riffing is care punk with the kind of pop-sugar coat that Green Day has excelled at for decades. Yet the band stretches on the dance ready "Kill The DJ," which is begging for a remix, or the simple and sweet "Oh Love."

What is missing are good lyrics. Too many F-Bombs sound like the band wasn't 100% ready with the words, so they just filled in the blanks with obscenities. Not that there are a lack of great couplets, like "Want to crack your cranium delirium" on the rocker "Troublemaker" or "I ain't got much time, so I'll get to the point/Do you wanna share a ride and get the f--k out of this joint" on "Stay the Night." (Which is backed up by "Carpe Diem.") "Uno!" is not a great album, but it kicks off the trilogy with a bang.