I’m going to preface this review by saying that the singer of Sum 41 might or might not be currently engaged to my future wife Avril Lavigne. I’m keeping that out of my mind as I approach Chuck, the latest effort put forth by the Canadian rockers and released by Island/Def Jam.
My first impression of the album was “damn, this kinda sounds like Master of Puppets era Metallica.” And no, I’m not kidding. Somehow these boys have progressed slowly from a pop-punk joke into a very good metal band. the Metallica reference comes in full blown on the song “The Bitter End” which uses pretty much the same vocal phrasing as “Battery” from Metallica, but if you’re gonna copy SOMETHING that band has done, it might as well be one of their best songs, right? At least they’re not suing me for having their disc on my computer as mp3s.
From what I’ve previously heard from the band, they are growing up and maturing, but not in that Bruce Springsteen kind of “lose my edge and rely on my back catalog to support my new release” way. They have been slowly finding their voice and their sound, despite being a band for nearly a decade. you certainly can’t them to play teeny-bop pop-punk for their entire career, right? Well, they’ve gone in a less mainstream friendly direction, but with more attitude in their songs and more message as well.
How’d this message and meaning stuff come about? Well, most people will tell you that it spawned from their recent trip to the Congo, where they got caught in the middle of some Congo gun-fighting. They were rescued by a UN representative named, of course, Chuck.
However, you might also want to consider that this is the band’s third release, and while the dick and fart jokes might have helped them gain their initial success, it all comes to an end eventually. Look at the state of the Bloodhound Gang’s career at the moment. Having trouble finding it? There’s a reason. Even Blink 182 started to mature with time and start writing about reality instead of trying to impress us with their drunken stories in song form.
Read lyrics to Chuckhere. The band’s official website can be found here.
Also – I’m an audio engineer, and let me say this about the album – it was mixed by Tom Lord-Alge. To those who aren’t in the engineering side of the music industry won’t necessarily know the name from a hole in the wall, but he is one of the best. I actually had an opportunity to hear him speak about how he approached this album in terms of the mix and I’ve got to say he’s done a beautiful job. Sonically, the album shines and everything is audible and clear. It’s my suggestion that you listen to this album on a good stereo BEFORE you encode it into an mp3 and most likely destroy it’s sonic quality with your sub-par mp3 encoder at a painfully low sample rate. Shame on you.
Anyway… If you’ve never heard the band before and you’re into metal I’d suggest the disc. If you’re into loud music I’d suggest the disc, hell, even you just like to hear an angry song now and then I’d suggest the disc.
If you’re curious as to what I listen to otherwise that I’m giving them a good review like this, I suggest you take a look at my Audioscrobbler account. It’s a lot of Presidents of the USA, but everything else might give you a clear picture.
