Reprise US レコード& CD

Review: Last year saw pop-punk legends Green Day headline the second instalment of the When We Were Young Festival in Las Vegas, following the latest resurgence of the scene and acclaimed new albums and tours from the likes of Blink-182 and Paramore. Not to be outdone (or more likely just sheer timing coincidence) the band are set to unveil their own "comeback" LP in the form of their follow up to the retro garage-pop collection Father Of All Motherfuckers which landed back in 2020. Simply titled Saviors, and promising to sonically and lyrically touch upon "power pop, punk, rock, indie triumph, disease, war, inequality, influencers, yoga retreats, alt right, dating apps, masks, MENTAL HEALTH, climate change, oligarchs, social media division, free weed, fentanyl, fragility", with a lead single boasting the mouthful 'The American Dream Is Killing Me', and Billie Joe's recent updating of the lyrics to 'American Idiot' to now denounce being part of a "MAGA agenda", it appears Mr. Armstrong and co. have some major pieces of mind to share with their avid followers and the unwashed masses at large.

Review: Storytelling country rock titan Neil Young might have lived out his heyday penning songs that persist in cultural memory almost as stickily and earwormingly as pure folk tranmissions like "Happy Birthday", but that doesn't mean he's rested on his laurels; not one bit, in fact. True to this, Before And After comes as Young's whopping 45th studio album, sure to set new and old fans alight with glee at word of its special status as a "trip into (Young's) musical history", in the words of co-producer Lou Adler. Of course, this communicates nothing else except the fact that Young has braved both his nearly unending back-catalogue and his unheard vaults, lending choice selections from both each a fresh re-recording. The likes of 'I'm The Ocean', 'Homefires' and 'Burned' are each set aright, to the extent that Young insists that the listener experience the release in one big go, having been conceived as a single 48-minute piece, despite its divvying-up into track-length revisitations.