Kerplunk!

Green Day’s overwhelming success with its third album Dookie sent the curious back to the earlier catalog to discover the band’s pop-punk charms were firmly in place. An early take of “Welcome to Paradise” is every bit as enticing and “2000 Light Years Away” is another perfectly catchy punk-pop anthem that highlights the band’s Jam-Buzzcocks-Dickies-Ramones-Descendents influence while still maintaining their own clear identity. Singer Billie Joe Armstrong’s clear, earnest vocals add just the right touch of snotty indifference and warm empathetic sincerity where necessary. “One of My Lies,” “Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?” and the moderately subdued “Words I Might Have Ate” riff with exuberance while “Christie Road” slows things down just enough to express what for this punk trio would be considered their “soft” side. It still attacks with Armstrong’s guitar never relenting on drummer Tre Cool and bassist Mike Dirnt’s meter-perfect attack. Cool even sidetracks the band into a little thigh-slapping country dig with “Dominated Love Slave.” Armstrong finishes things with a sloppy and lively take on the Who’s “My Generation.”