Living in North Dakota we have all seen the kid who loses an edge while ice skating and can’t get back up. People keep their eyes on them at all times as they stumble from where they once stood strong. This is Green Day. After “American Idiot” they slumped and musically couldn’t get it together. Now, 12 years later, they have got to the boards and pulled themselves back onto their feet with their new album “Revolution Radio.”

I am not going to lie; I had my doubts. The past few albums have been beyond mediocre or just plain annoying such as their song “Know Your Enemy.” Where they repeated the line “Do you know your enemy” 16 times and “Well gotta know the enemy” eight times in a three minute song.

“Revolution Radio” was released on Oct. 7 of this year and has already hit number one on the UK Album Chart. This album is their first album in four years. “Revolution Rock” follows up the impressive publishing year of 2012 where Green Day released three albums within a 72 days of each other (“Uno!”, “Dos!”, “Tres!”)

What got me interested in listening to this new album, wasn’t the news of a new album or anything. I had basically given up on Green Day’s new stuff, until I heard their new single “Bang Bang.” When I heard the sound and felt the feel of it I had to listen to the album. The edge at least in for this song seemed to be back. Could the California punk band be making a much needed come back?

The album starts off with a song called “Somewhere Now.” It begins with a nice sounding acoustic guitar. Green Day is known for having soft and pretty songs such as “When September Ends.” So it starting soft wasn’t anything startling. Then out of nowhere about 45 seconds into the song the electric guitar kicks in and the song gets some legs. You hear the energy and the sound of classic Green Day.

Right after “Somewhere Now” is the single from the album “Bang Bang.” Then the album became mediocre for three songs. During this time I thought to myself, “Here we go again, Green Day. Another meh album.”

Finally, on track six came the song “Bouncing Off the Wall.” Once the singing came in I was instantly caught by its hook. The backing vocals drew me in and it seemed like the song was made for an arena. Backing vocals that thousands of people could shout back at you.

My favorite song off the album is “Too Dumb to Die.” The song drives hard and brings you back to the days of “Dookie” and “American Idiot” back to when the band had this unbreakable energy and backbone. The way Billy Joe Armstrong forms the melody of the lyrics is beyond catchy, it’s an earbug. It may be my favorite song they have released in 12 years.

Green Day is one of those bands that has had a huge impact on the music world and listeners everywhere. With Armstrong’s unique voice and his knack for writing meaningful and hard rocking punk songs back in action, there shouldn’t be anything standing in the bands way of becoming even bigger. All in all I am happy to see Green Day making music that I can rock out to again instead of getting annoyed.

Cameron Campbell is a opinion writer for  The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected]