Green Day ‘Father Of All…’ – Review

In the 1990s they had a very different persona, one that was more occupied with smoking weed and hanging out with mates than it was addressing the American establishment. That laidback style remains their most popular – Dookie! is consistently voted by fans as their best work, but this century has seen them slowly degrade in relevance and expectation, becoming as corporate and commercial as the capitalist system they criticise. Mother Of All… continues this trend in spades.

The album starts off strong enough. Its opener is an enjoyable, fun power chord fest that’s simple but digestible, while ‘Sugar Youth’ is a pop-punk anthem that younger fans will lap up. Things fall apart quite quickly outside of these songs, though, with most of the album consisting of generic guitar chords and forgettable lyrics.

As Vice puts it, this album obviously isn’t meant to be taken extremely seriously, but that still doesn’t make it good. It also recycles several sounds and ideas from previous works. Even the cover is a rehash of American Idiot’s artwork, albeit with a colourful unicorn graffitiing all over it. The album’s sound is somewhere between bluesy rock and pop, with flavours of Royal Blood, The Black Keys, and old school guitar music thrown in for good measure.

Its biggest issue is the pointless of it all. None of the lyrics stand out, neither do the choruses or rifts. The album passes by with little to come back to, and Billie’s voice is as nasally as ever here. The ‘Meet Me On The Roof’ single treads similar waters to previous track ‘Stray Heart’ from Dos!, and the latter tracks remind me of the ballads from Tre!.

Overall, Mother Of All… is one big album of pop rock filler, and I highly doubt any track on here will go down as one of the band’s best. This project fulfils the band’s ten record long deal with Warner Bros, which could be why it even exists in the first place, and things might get a little more interesting from here on out.

For now, this is a thoroughly mundane experience. How a band that created Dookie! and American Idiot got to this strange, commercial place of irrelevance is beyond me, but this is one you’ll probably want to skip this time round.