Recorded at this year's two-night stand at the Milton Keynes Bowl, Bullet in a Bible captures Green Day riding the huge wave of acclaim that followed their global breakthrough with the 10-million-selling American Idiot.
For most of the album, it's as if The Clash had "gone stadium" three decades late, with rousing agit-punk anthems such as "American Idiot" and "Minority" barked out to the delight of 65,000 fervent fans. The main difference is in the band's frequent demands to " get those hands in the air", as if it were a stick-up rather than a show.
But there's an inflationary element to Green Day's approach, as songs like the new single "Jesus of Suburbia" extend into multi-sectioned suites: it's punk-rock with prog pretensions, bursting through its tattered threads like Bruce Banner becoming The Hulk.
The best track is probably "King for a Day", whose galloping rhythm provides a launch-pad for a diversionary mid-song romp through " Shout", capped with a few jaunty choruses of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life": it's not often you get to hear 65,000 people whistling in unison.
DOWNLOAD THIS: 'American Idiot', 'King for a Day', 'Minority', 'Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)'
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