EDITORS’ NOTES

The third and final installment of Green Day's planned trilogy starts with a gentle, swaying pop song that lifts its melody straight from Sam Cooke's "Bring It on Home to Me," with a horn section complementing the sweet harmonies. Except the song is called "Brutal Love," and its guitar solo is a heartwrenching scrape against the strings. It's a gentle way of easing listeners into the closing chapter of Billie Joe Armstrong's massive songwriting purge. "Missing You" picks up the pace, but a sense of hangover pervades the tune until the chorus shakes off that hazy feeling. Hooks are Armstrong's strong suit, and even in a somber, reflective mood he reels off compact melodies that say more than any words he could write. Tunes like "8th Avenue Serenade," the acoustic "Drama Queen," "X-Kid," "Walk Away," and the piano ballad "The Forgotten" ache far more than most songs in Green Day's catalog. It isn't all wistful thinking: "99 Revolutions" tips its hat to the Occupy movement, while "Dirty Rotten Bastards" is a multi-part punk opera in six and a half minutes.