Unlike many of their Noughties pop-punk peers, Sum 41 have avoided the creeping temptation of anodyne chart music. While Blink-182 and Fall Out Boy moved away from punk towards pop, this Canadian outfit resisted synths and stuck to guitars.
After their 2001 debut, Sum 41 embraced a slick, metal-influenced style. Order in Decline, their seventh studio album, is the heaviest yet, overflowing with pounding drums and muscular riffs.
The dynamic album opener, Turning Away, offers thumping grooves and considered breakdowns. It’s an anomaly, though, and soon the band hurtle onwards, doing little to drag us with them.
The main riff on The People Vs… is a stale Metallica tribute, and elsewhere the album’s guitar work regurgitates itself. The production is often overdone, sanitising any rawness, and sometimes ridiculous: the guitar solo on Out For Blood sounds like an internet dial-up.
Frontman Deryck Whibley’s lyrics go for killer blows but only land blunt jabs. 45 (A Matter of Time) lunges clumsily at Donald Trump, calling him “a symbol of meaningless void of respect”, while elsewhere he spouts uninspiring calls-to-arms and clichés about establishment “lies”.
Whibley’s ear for a catchy melody remains strong, but it’s not enough to redeem this tedious album.
