Green Day – ‘Saviors’ review: their best work since ‘American Idiot’

16 January, 2024

Green Day release 14th album 'Saviors'. Credit: Alice Baxley

“Green Day goes from raging against the machine to milquetoastedly raging for it,” billionaire Elon Musk recently pouted when the pop-punk icons altered ‘American Idiot”s lyrics to attack the MAGA brigade. Goes to show you can’t buy common sense, eh? Whether rolling around the East Bay in the early ‘90s with anthems for the jilted generation, or explicitly wearing their politics on their sleeve for the aforementioned state-of-the-nation address, it’s always been pretty clear what side of history Green Day are on. Still, gather all the Karens and colour them red, white and shocked.

But where are we now? While the band’s 2020 predecessor ‘Father Of All Motherfuckers’ was a sharp blast of young, dumb, jukebox pop-punk – skipping the politics and the all-too-obvious Trump-bashing for an intravenous burst of piss, vinegar, rock’n’roll – the trio’s 14th album ‘Saviors’ feels more considered. We’ve been overdue an election-year statement record from the trio, and ‘Saviors’ gives it a good crack.

Their flag is firmly planted in opener ‘The American Dream Is Killing Me’ where Billie Joe Armstrong paints a land divided between Black Lives Matter and the white picket fence: “My country under siege, on private property”. That spirit runs through the record, notably on the title track calling for a wake-up call to “make us all believers”.

The bubblegum ‘Strange Days Are Here To Stay’ aptly pinpoints 2016 as the year all went to shit with Trump, Brexit and the culture wars as Armstrong pines that “Ever since Bowie died, it hasn’t been the same”; now, he points to the opioid crisis, unabashed racism and a cross-generational divide as what’s smouldering in America’s in-tray. The hardcore-tinged ‘Living In The 20s’ paints a hopeless and violent era where “I drink my media and turn it into vomit”, while sauntering closer ‘Fancy Sauce’ describes the ludicrous evening news as Armstrong’s “favourite cartoon” where “everyone’s a victim and it makes me want to puke”.

Of course, the record is a good romp too. The pure punk abandon of ‘Look Ma, No Brains’ could arguably fit on any Green Day album, ‘Bobby Sox’ is a rollicking ode to adolescent love, ‘Corvette Summer’ channels AC/DC and Thin Lizzy rock’n’roll hedonism, and ‘1981’ feels like the snotty wee sibling of ‘Church On Sunday’ or ‘Castaway’ from ‘Warning’, losing it to The Ramones at a house-party.

Respite comes in the more heartfelt moments, like the forlorn ‘Goodnight Adelaine’ (which has more than a touch of ‘When I Come Around’), the Elvis Costello-indebted saunter of ‘Suzie Chapstick’ and the orchestral mini-epic ‘Father To A Son’. With Amstrong’s paternal promise that “I’ve made a few mistakes but I’ll never break your heart”, this will will be filed alongside ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’ in Green Day’s canon of lighters-up tearjerkers, albeit with a great deal more wisdom and Beatles-meets-Queen stadium grandeur.

There’s also some serendipity in the band hitting the road to celebrate 30 years of ‘Dookie’ and 20 years of ‘American Idiot’ later this summer. Not only does ‘Saviors’ spiritually bridge the gap between the two, but it uses the palette of the best of the band to tell us something else. Look to the artwork: ‘Dookie’ was a cheeky carpet-bombing of shit, ‘American Idiot’ was a hand grenade, ‘Saviors’ is an act of defiance met with a shrug; a band saying, “We’re still here and we’re still fucked”.