Posted by Despite the current U.S president gone is the politically charged and arena friendly rock of American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown, Father of all Motherfuckers is short, sharp and wants to have a good time. This is Green Day’s thirteenth album and at 26 minutes it is also their briefest, it has no overarching concepts or angry political diatribes just two to three minute servings of punchy riffs and hooks.
Whilst this change of course is much welcomed, especially after the more of the same offering that was Revolution Radio four years ago, it does not land as intended. Opening song and the lead single ‘Father of All’ is raucous, punky and to the point but the falsetto vocals get increasingly annoying and the melody is airlifted from Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Fire’. The rest of the album follows suit; short, succinct but ultimately forgetful, as is definitely the case in the proceeding tracks ‘Fire, Ready, Aim’ and ‘Oh Yeah!’ – and the less said about the latters source material the better.
Father of All… is the kind of album the Californian trio can churn out in their sleep, be it the tautological nonentity ‘I Was a Teenage Teenager’ or the ‘She’s a Rebel’ stylings of ‘Sugar Youth’ it is over pretty quick and will not live long in the memory. The one stand out amongst the swathe of by the book banality is ‘Stab You in the Heart’ a jolly little number with a big debt to ‘Hippy Hippy Shake’.
Father of All Motherfuckers is a disappointingly boring attempt at a carefree, anti-political party record – although its short run time does mean it is over quicker so every cloud and all that. Normally you should not judge a book by its cover but in this case do.
3/10
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