“Get it? Like, nuclear? Oh man, I can’t believe I just discovered this great pun!”

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Brad Shoup: It’s power-pop of the sort Green Day could write in their sleep. It’s Rolling Stone rock ‘n’ roll, with ostensible truisms tossed in a room and a couple signifiers (angels’ piss, defective Ferris wheels) providing the rusty edges.
[5]
Patrick St. Michel: Green Day have reached the point in their career where they don’t even have to try and they’ll still find a way to sell thousands of albums. They are releasing three albums in the next few months to seemingly just make a lame pun joke about their drummer. Still, “Nuclear Family” is especially phoned in because they are at their most politically vague (and frustrating) and just ctrl + c’ed the riffs from “American Idiot.”
[2]
Alfred Soto: A Return to Form because the character confesses his boredom over stop-start rhythms and the vocal melody evokes “Safe European Homes.” Another example of the Downward Spiral because there isn’t a single interesting line besides Dirndt’s bass.
[4]
Will Adams: Certainly an improvement over the slothful dirge of “Oh Love,” but it suffers from overcompression; those guitars are begging to burst into the sonic field, but someone – be it Billie Joe Armstrong, Rob Cavallo, a gremlin – won’t let them shine.
[5]
Edward Okulicz: Riff out of “Basketcase,” guitar and bass dropping out during Billie Joe’s verses from “American Idiot,” energy level back from when Green Day seemed vital and played lively. I mean this as a compliment: “Nuclear Family” is easily good enough for fourteen-year-olds and those whose tastes haven’t changed since fourteen.
[7]
Jonathan Bogart: The slight gestures towards rockabilly — or rather towards Social Distortion’s ca-1990 punk version of rockabilly — are rather nice. Everything else wears the ponderousness of guys who take themselves way too seriously self-consciously attempting to get back to their unserious roots.
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