Review Summary: It's not nearly as good as their early work or even their rock operas, but TRE still turns out to be a solid album and the best part of the trilogy.
Over half a year has passed since Green Day concluded their gamble of releasing a trilogy of albums. Musical quality aside, the trilogy's release was plagued by many issues that started even before the first album (UNO) was released to the public; starting with Billie Joe Armstrong's breakdown at the iHeart Radio music festival in September. After UNO was released, there was a slew of music videos for the album, despite its low ratings. With Billie in rehab, the band could not tour to promote the rest of the trilogy, and so DOS and TRE went rather unnoticed by the public. For those that did show interest, many berated DOS for being too polished (since it was being passed off as a "garage rock" album) and having little creativity. This left little hope for the final installment of the trilogy, TRE.
Looking at the closer album now, I can start off by saying that TRE is most certainly the best album out of the trilogy. However, that doesn't mean it is up there with the bands previous work. The opener "Brutal Love" starts the album with a sound that I can best describe as a 50's ballad. the song builds up nicely as it goes on, and the strings and piano add a nice touch to things. As the album continues, the band manages to keep their pop rock sound and still have a hint of variety to keep most of the tracks from sounding exactly the same. That being said, there are songs on the album where I found myself wondering, "Didn't I just hear this one?" The main culprits being "8th Avenue Serenade" and "Little Boy Named Train."
The songwriting and lyrics of TRE are an improvement from UNO and DOS, but there are still lyrical duds on the album, and most of the songs aren't nearly as well written as the tracks you can find on the bands earlier work (Some songs off of 21CB are better written, and that's saying something.) Two tracks that suffer greatly from bad lyrics are "Drama Queen" and "Sex, Drugs, and Violence," where the writing comes across as either perverted and strange ("Daddy's little bundle of joy/ Out of a magazine/ Everyone's drama queen/ Is old enough to bleed now") or just plain stupid (Sex, drugs & violence/ English, math & science/ Safety in numbers/ Give me, give me danger.") On the other hand, there are songs that more well written, some good examples being "Missing You," where the title serves as a double meaning, and "X-Kid," where Billie (supposedly?) writes about a childhood friend that committed suicide.
Green Day try to bring back the idea of rock opera with the song "Dirty Rotten Bastards," which stands as the longest track on the album. DRB is the point in the entire trilogy where the band showcases what they can do with their instruments; Mike Dirnt plays the fastest solo he's ever done, and Billie serves up some guitar skills that are reminiscent of his early soloing style from 1039SOSH and Kerplunk. Lyrics are nothing noteworthy, but this track gets a bump in my book, mainly due to the fact that I am a bassist and I appreciated Mikes work on the song.
Closing with the ironically forgettable piano ballad titled "The Forgotten," I'm left thinking that Green Day could have been more successful with this final installment of their trilogy. Perhaps, if things hadn't of gone wrong with Billie going to rehab and UNO's release, TRE would have gotten more of the "good" attention that it deserved. Most write off the trilogy as a failure when this album could have saved it from being a total failure. But the past is the past, and in the end, Green Day is still rich and successful. So why should they (or anyone else) care?
Recommended Tracks:
Missing you
X-Kid
Amanda
Dirty Rotten Bastards
