Sum 41 - Underclass Hero

Thu 16th Aug, 2007 in Music Reviews

With the recent departure of lead guitarist, Dave – œBrownsound’ Baksh, it’s obvious that his musical abilities have seriously impacted on Sum 41’s sound. His apparent reason for leaving was to work on another project that allowed him to focus more on his interests in metal, and this influence (i.e. Shredding licks) is noticeably missing on Underclass Hero.

During the time of recording the band also faced the loss of their management and as front man Deryck Whibley himself put it, ”[they] were kind of left with nobody,” forcing him to produce the album and mix a number of the tracks as well. The results go to prove that perhaps Whibley knows a thing or two about what sounds good, and that maybe they never really needed another producer anyway.

As the opening bars of the title track begin blasting out, it sounds as if the trio have panicked at the loss of Baksh and scrambled to re-create the same sound from their glory days, the track suspiciously similar to their breakthrough hit Fat Lip (even the film clip is ridiculously similar!). Thankfully what is to follow is not a complete re-hashing.

For a band that are notorious for being – œsnot nosed punks’, famed for releasing home-made videos of their hugely childish and moronic pranks and drunken antics (robbing pizza stores with super soakers, setting off hotel fire alarms and spraying fire extinguishers everywhere, etc), the lyrical content has become oddly serious. Tales range from personal struggles ( Dear Father ), to politics ( March of the Dogs, The Jester ) and love ( Best of Me ). It’s not badly written at all, much of it works nicely but some of it comes off as insincere and angsty for the sake of being – œserious’.

Style wise, the record is not an unfamiliar sound; thick with pop punk anthems and that classic vocal sound that is inimitably Deryck. Several tracks draw very close comparisons to their punk rock peers in late Blink 182 and American Idiot era Green Day. Dear Father sounds similar to Adam’s Song (Blink) and March of The Dogs has a guitar that sounds like Violence (Blink) mixed with the opening line “Ladies and gentlemen of the underclass / The president of the United States is Dead” that is executed in an almost identical fashion to the line in Holiday by Green Day(“The representative of California has the floor”). It’s a similar story with King of Contradiction, you’d be forgiven for thinking Billie Joe makes a guest vocal appearance on the flat out Dookie-era GD style track with a bridge that almost directly rips off a riff from Jesus of Suburbia. The strange thing about this is that in spite of it all sounding terribly similar to bands who did and first, and arguably better, they perform it in a way that (for the most part) is still undeniably Sum 41.

It’s not all distorted guitars and shouted vocals, there are slower numbers such as Pull the Curtain and Best of Me that include the addition of strings, keyboards, acoustic guitars and piano. There’s even a slice that sounds like something your grandparent’s would nod their head to, the plonking French-sung Ma Poubelle... if only they realised it was a rather obtuse song about a girl being Deryck’s “little garbage can” and a “little flower with a door that’s like butter” for whom he’ll “look for garbage”, starting “in [his] pants” (those are direct translations!).

When you’ve grown out of your teens, it’s hard to imagine anything like this could or would be any good. If, for some reason, you do manage to get a chance to give this one a spin then make sure you do so! You might actually be surprised at what can be found within.