You Can Be My Wave

In the early to mid 2000s, pop-punk was my life. In fact, Green Day and blink-182 were so influential to me that I gave up a life of sport in favour of one that would become all about music. Despite being consumed by this genre of music, in a twist of irony, I never really got into my country's biggest pop-punk export. I'm talking about Sum 41 of course. I'm not quite sure why I hadn't taken the time to dive deeper into their music. It's not like they didn't have hits; Fat Lip is an amazing pop-punk tune with an iconic opening riff. They also displayed that they have a silly sense of humour, albeit a more polite one, which was a quality that many of their contemporaries shared. You can look no further than the music video for In Too Deep where Dave 'Brownsound' Baksh rises from water like a guitar deity to deliver a shredding solo, and a speedo-clad Stevo32 earns himself a perfect ten by flipping between springboards before executing a flawless dive. As I was reflecting on this more, I realized that calling myself a pop-punk fan and not having listened to at least one Sum 41 record in full felt hypocritical, frankly unpatriotic. Therefore, to celebrate Canada Day, I listened to their breakout album All Killer No Filler to correct that injustice.

While I'm fairly certain I haven't heard this record in full before, my experience listening to All Killer No Filler felt joyfully familiar. With the combination of Jerry Finn's production and Thom Lord-Alge's mix, Sum 41's songs sound like they are being presented in the blink-182 sound font. Again, for someone who loves those massive blink records, that's a really good starting point. The main selling feature of Sum 41's music has to be Deryck Whibley's voice, which is perfectly built for this style of music. He possesses just enough of that punk rasp to give his performances that urgent bite without being too abrasive, and he also has some pretty impressive range as evidenced by his high harmonies that are all over this record. Songwriting wise, I do think they're fairly strong, although perhaps a bit one-note. I would've liked to hear some more standout guitar riffs that were on par with Fat Lip or a little more experimentation with the guitar tones. I also wish I heard more variety when it comes to the rhythms. There's not a lot of syncopation or use of space on the record to keep things fresh and grooving as you progress through the set of songs.

On All Killer No Filler, Sum 41 is strongest right out of the gate. Nothing On My Back kicks in with an oddly timed chord progression, the chorus has a fun 'call and response' thing going on, the bridge is an epic build up fit for the arena, and Whibley's belts in the final chorus bring the track to a very climactic finish. After this comes the lightning quick Never Wake Up, which is disappointing only for the fact that it's the only cut played at this breakneck tempo. It's hardcore-tinged and Whibley gives a convincingly aggressive performance. Then we get to Fat Lip which is still just as iconic. The song easily could've sounded dated at this point with the rap fusions in the verses, however, I think the song aged gracefully given how well the Beastie Boys schtick was executed. Rounding out a strong first leg is Rhythms, which comes barreling in with a fat drum fill before meeting those tight, harmonized guitar chords. Jason 'Cone' McCaslin delivers some pretty great basslines in the verses, and this track also comes to a pretty epic close, even if Stevo32's snare rolls are somewhat bungled.

The rest of the record is solid, but there was one track that I found to be a little underwhelming. Handle This is the slower, more melodramatic cut that every pop-punk record had to have, and these are rarely the most essential songs in my opinion; this track is no exception. There's also a couple of nitpicky songwriting elements that I'm not really on board with. For example, Crazy Amanda Bunkface ends with a key change that doesn't quite give it the enthusiastic lift that I think it's aiming for. The song could have ended prior to this fourteen second outro and the ending would have been much stronger for it. I also feel like the verse and chorus sections of Heart Attack are a mismatch. There's a subtle shift in the tempo that the band successfully navigates, but it's the rhythm and the start shift in energy that sounds awkward to me. In the end though, it's very difficult to hate on it. The album is very energetic, catchy, agreeable, and generally well written; meaning that All Killer No Filler mostly lives up to its name.