Tré Magnifique?

Green Day's three-album trilogy, which began only a few months ago with ¡Uno! and continued just weeks ago with ¡Dos!, has now concluded with the release of ¡Tré! (It's named for the band's drummer, not the Spanish number.) It turns out they did not save the best for last; the album might in fact be the least of the three.

But it's not that ¡Tré! is a bad album. It's just... quite even keel. Where the prior two albums had both songs I'd rate 5 stars and material I'll skip over every time, this final album is quite average. None of the tracks has captured my imagination enough to go on relentless replay, though none of them sends me reaching for the skip button either.

There's a mix of old and new song styles on the album. The opening track, "Brutal Love," has a doo-wop blues sort of bass-and-chord structure that seemed like a fun and unexpected way to kick off a punk-pop album. But then the next song, "Missing You," is not only familiar Green Day territory, but feels a bit like an up-tempo "Wild One," a song off the first album in this same trilogy. Some songs are both old and new at the same time; "Dirty Rotten Bastards" is this album's "Jesus of Surburbia", a several-songs-in-one medley of conflicting styles, though some of the pieces themselves feel quite fresh.

I still have hopes that one or two of the tracks might break through and raise my overall opinion of the album. But that said, I seem to be picking up a lot of new music right now that's pulling me onward and away from this latest Green Day effort. So as of now, I'll give ¡Tré! a B-. If you're a Green Day fan, you'll want this, as with both prior albums in the series. If you're more casual in your opinion of the band, then it's the initial album, ¡Uno!, that you'll likely want to check out.