9 Minutes of Amazing Power
A nine-minute track - have Green Day gone prog? Not quite, the first few chords instantly reveal the good old brash punk style that characterises the trio's catchy sound. Like much of the rest of 'American Idiot', 'Jesus of Suburbia' has a far more impassioned sound than the band's earlier tracks and the melodic guitars and even piano serve to raise the limits for good modern punk tunes. The tune seems to move smoothly between the five distinctive phases which its made up of, rather like a political pop opera it makes its point in stunning style with easy going vocal-based verses and reflective pauses that hit home sitting neatly beside the usual frantic eruption of guitars and belting vocals. The section entitled 'I Don't Care' has a lot of rather breezy vocal harmonising that's quite unexpected, but curiously welcome, while the 'City of the Damned' is filled with the generic "heys" that tell you this is the big, epic part that's going to bowl you over, and so it does. No, Green Day haven't lost any of their cheek in taking on such an ambitious project, after all the track is called 'Jesus of Suburbia' and makes constant reference to the religion of choice of the youth of today, "Get my television fix/Sitting on my crucifix".
It's great to see such an intelligent and conceptual piece of music with a real message behind it hitting the commercial market, and the radio edit version a 6 1/2 minute runtime is definitely worth cutting short some inane DJ banter for. It's a modern-day urban hymn punctuated by rapid fire drumming that's sure to thrill fans and latecomers to the Green Day phenomenon alike. The one bad thing about this record is the fact you find yourself engrossed in it and don't notice the time passing, why even one listening can make you late for that all important appointment!