What do you know? It's Green Day. Come on in and set a spell. You remember me, right? I owned all your earlier albums. Yes, past tense. What went wrong? Don't know. Times change, my friend. Cyndi Lauper and Def Leppard don't hang out with me much anymore, either. But don't you fret, because within the first 30 seconds, your Nimrod thing there took me back to those halcyon days of 1994 when piercing was still shocking and you guys had the world in the palm of your hand. In fact, you might say I felt exactly the same. No 'hey, look, there's Green Day. Haven't seen him in awhile. Have you grown? Artistically I mean?' -- it was like you never left. Sure, you did a few things differently, like the Alanisesque harmonica solo on "Walking Alone" and the strings on "Good Riddance." But you're the same guy I used to mosh with. Good to have you back. How about a hug?

-Jason Josephes