2008 Woodie Awards
Hear a Harder, Softer Side of Sum
Sum 41 explores a softer sound with metal riffs.
Chelsea Banks
Issue date: 10/27/04 Section: Valley Life
- Page 1 of 1
Sum 41's new album "Chuck" starts with soft, melodic guitar and launches into one of the loudest, thrashiest songs the band has written.
In classic Sum 41 fashion, "Chuck" is filled with angry, angst-ridden songs complaining about society.
Lead singer Deryck Whibley continues to sing with the same pop-punk flare over metal-style guitar licks, categorizing Sum 41 as (dare I say it?) pop-metal.
However, this album also features something that Sum 41 has never explored - soft rock.
Before you go on a rampage, destroying every copy of "Chuck" you can find, give it a listen and you'll discover the band actually achieves the sound quite well.
Don't think for a moment that this makes "Chuck" a soft-ballad album to play while making out with your significant other. It's far from it.
The best example of Sum 41's exploration of music styles is "We're All To Blame." The song's verses pump out Sum's signature loud metal/pop-punk crunch, while the mellow chorus sounds like it belongs in an emo ballad.
The only disappointment about this album is near the end of "I'm Not the One." Whibley's screams of "You take the best of me" sound a little too much like Linkin Park's "A Place for My Head" which says "You try to take the best of me."
However, the lyric theft was possibly intentional, considering that on their last album, "Does This Look Infected?," they lifted the chorus from Rancid's "Let Me Go."
Somehow, without straying too far from their previous style, Sum 41 has reinvented themselves, developing both a harder and softer sound at the same time while managing to sound good in the process. Don't believe me? Get the album.
In classic Sum 41 fashion, "Chuck" is filled with angry, angst-ridden songs complaining about society.
Lead singer Deryck Whibley continues to sing with the same pop-punk flare over metal-style guitar licks, categorizing Sum 41 as (dare I say it?) pop-metal.
However, this album also features something that Sum 41 has never explored - soft rock.
Before you go on a rampage, destroying every copy of "Chuck" you can find, give it a listen and you'll discover the band actually achieves the sound quite well.
Don't think for a moment that this makes "Chuck" a soft-ballad album to play while making out with your significant other. It's far from it.
The best example of Sum 41's exploration of music styles is "We're All To Blame." The song's verses pump out Sum's signature loud metal/pop-punk crunch, while the mellow chorus sounds like it belongs in an emo ballad.
The only disappointment about this album is near the end of "I'm Not the One." Whibley's screams of "You take the best of me" sound a little too much like Linkin Park's "A Place for My Head" which says "You try to take the best of me."
However, the lyric theft was possibly intentional, considering that on their last album, "Does This Look Infected?," they lifted the chorus from Rancid's "Let Me Go."
Somehow, without straying too far from their previous style, Sum 41 has reinvented themselves, developing both a harder and softer sound at the same time while managing to sound good in the process. Don't believe me? Get the album.
