New album reviews: Green Day comes back strong, Kristin Chenowith plays jazz chanteuse

POP/ROCK

Green Day, "Revolution Radio" (Reprise)

After Green Day's stunning success with 2004's "American Idiot" — still the most important rock album of this century — the band started walking a narrowing tightrope.

Singer/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong felt the trio needed to continue addressing political issues while still crafting catchy pop-leaning punk, with ever-increasing stakes. But following the stress of the near-simultaneous release of three albums "Uno! Dos! Tré!" in 2012, it all came crashing down. Armstrong entered rehab and Green Day went on hiatus, avoiding the spotlight aside from getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year.

The band's new album was done essentially in secret and, for the first time since 2000's "Warning," has no overarching theme. But the freedom to write whatever they want seems to have energized Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool to deliver plenty of great songs on a wide range of topics.

The stunning single "Bang Bang" disguises the demented view of a social media-obsessed mass shooter wannabe in a full-throttle punk rave-up and the super-sweet backing vocals of Dirnt and Cool.

Even more potent is "Still Breathing," where Armstrong declares "I'm still alive" over the peppiest pop punk we've heard from Green Day in years. "I'm like a soldier coming home for the first time," he sings, genuinely sneer-free. "I dodged a bullet and I walked across a land mine."

"Revolution Radio" is definitely more wistful than its predecessors, whether nostalgically recalling a troubled youth in the chiming "Outlaws" or celebrating Armstrong's wife in the jangling singalong "Youngblood." It's a testament to the artistic power of Green Day that its comeback album is so accomplished and anything but tentative.

Glenn Gamboa, Newsday

Kristin Chenoweth,

"The Art of Elegance" (Concord)

As an Emmy- ("Pushing Daisies") and Tony Award-winning ("You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown") actress and clarion-clear belter best known for Broadway's "Wicked," the happy-go-lucky blonde isn't usually who you'd think of as a smoky jazz chanteuse, unless it was smoked ham. Yet, when Chenoweth luxuriates in Alan Broadbent's Ormandy-plush string and brass arrangements on "The Art of Elegance," her voice becomes less like a blaring trumpet and more like a subtle French horn as she approaches the tender strokes of George and Ira Gershwin classics lonely ("Someone to Watch Over Me") and teasingly loving ("I've Got a Crush on You") with a supple sensuality.

For the sake of actorly breathiness and smoldering sexuality, Chenoweth does a lovely rendition of "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered." Saxophonist Dave Koz's shrill fills are unnecessary on "The Very Thought of You," and "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart" is dipped in pure saccharine, but her aggressively sad, warm glow during "A House Is Not a Home" and "I'm a Fool to Want You" curb the sugar rush. Brava.

A.D. Amorosi, Philadelphia Inquirer