Green Day have long occupied a weird spot in popular culture. As one of the most famous bands in Punk as far as numbers go, they have long been under a high amount of scrutiny, accusations of being posers, selling out, and playing it safe, have been a relentless thread throughout their career. However, this needle shifted as the 21st century has progressed, as to many (myself included) the band have just simply got gradually worse as the years have gone on. Whether this is a product of their older age or the complacency that comes with stardom their edge has been long gone.
This brings us to Saviors, the band's first album since the disastrous Father of All... and has the long hiatus allowed the band to hone their skills and deliver a genuinely great late career record? Not quite, but it is good! There are plenty of highlights. "One Eyed Bastard" is basically "So What" by P!nk but has a very distinctly American Idiot era sound to it that I feel works. Both the title track and the closer are great tracks that play into each other well. But the album's greatest moment is "Dilemma" which in my opinion is the band's best song since the 90s, this came as a massive shock to me. The band randomly pull out this phenomenal Power Pop track that feels like it could have come off of a hidden gem record from the late 90s.
Several other songs almost reach a point of greatness but falter in small areas. The primary issue with the album is that the band have a habit of cutting themselves short and some songs would have benefited from a longer length. "Coma City" is a pretty adventurous track that I honestly feel would have benefited from that longer length, had this been given the space to sprawl this could have been a phenomenal track. Not only that but "Look Ma, No Brains!" which is otherwise a pretty solid uptempo track with decent energy, only really finds its swing as it screeches to a halt. I'm not suggesting the band write exclusively 10+ minute multi-part suites but almost every song here is under 4 minutes, I think a few of them could have been given more room to breathe.
Sadly, like a lot of the band's work, inconsistency finds a way to creep in. The opening track "The American Dream is Killing Me" is a fairly average Green Day stomper with a pretty weak vocal performance and the vocal performance is a consistent issue. You feel the age in Armstrong's voice. It isn't so much that he sounds bad, he doesn't, he sounds good, but his distinct sneer is gone. However, the album's worst moment is the atrocious "Corvette Summer" by far the worst song on the record, a Hard Rock stomper that feels like it could have been one of the lowlights of the trilogy.
All of this and what does it leave us with? Not the masterful return to form many fans and critics were hoping for, but what it is in my view a pretty solid album that shows that the band still care. While they are far from their peak, Saviors prove that the band can still try out new ideas and succeed. There are glimpses of their past glory and songs like "Dilemma" prove that the band can still write songs that stack up to their best work. While I don't think this is the later-period masterpiece that we were hoping for, I wouldn't rule out the idea of it happening someday.
