There’s just something about Canadian punk that is a little bit odd — comical even. It’s hard to say why really.
It’s not that Canada is less of a country, or that they are inferior in any way. But maybe it’s just because Canada never really poses a threat to us, especially in the music they export.
Canada is the land of Céline Dion, Bryan Adams and the Barenaked Ladies: Nothing with too much substance and definitely nothing too offensive.
Sum 41 is a similar case: Four Canadian punks, each one looking like some kid your little sister goes out with because his mom lets him hang out at the mall on weekends. Thus, there is somewhat of a tension in its music, since it has tried its hardest to jump on the popular bandwagon of fashionable offensiveness, the marketplace for a chic of lewdness and crudeness seen in everything from the Rolling Stones to “Jackass.”
The band doesn’t come off as mean or dangerous as someone like Nelly, no matter how hard it tries (and no matter how many soundbites of spitting and swear words they put before their songs).
That doesn’t mean its latest record “Does This Look Infected?” doesn’t rock. It does. Actually, much harder than originally thought.
Sum 41 isn’t afraid to show its influences, but it doesn’t solely draw from the past.
Musically, it has been hailed for keeping their metal influences in its records, while simultaneously making them accessible to large audiences. Such is partly true for “Does This Look Infected?,” a record that sounds like Mötley Crüe, if only Mötley Crüe was doing whippits instead of heroin, and doing stunts around their hometown instead of having mass orgies with famous strippers and coke.
So, really, the metal influences are there, somewhat, but not to the extent that its criticism has implied.
The record — though louder and heavier than their previous ones — is too tame, too friendly. It’s more Blink 182 than Judas Priest: A lot of the practical-joke-skate-rock punk that came out in the wake of the great Green Day “Dookie” explosion. Though the record as a whole has this sheen, all of the songs don’t fall into this category, which is one of the best things about it.
Many of the songs have a gripping sense of longing that is sorely absent from most releases marketed to an adolescent audience posing as rebels. The feel of each song continuously changes — from outright anger to sadness, back to a good, healthy frustration — which gives them a depth that leads listeners to the end of the album; an endearing, but recently rare, quality.
Overall, every record has a time and place that it fits best, and this one has that forget-your-girlfriend-your-parents-your-teachers-and-everything-else-and-go-skateboarding or terrorize-the-local-Wendy’s-drive-through-window-lady attitude down with surprising accuracy.
It had that situational relevance down so well that I almost felt old listening to it.
“Infected” — with its “Night of the Living Dead” cover art and basic punk aesthetics — is a record that will spawn, for many, the fond memories of misdemeanor juvenile delinquency, the day one gets his license and drives around with the music loud, unforgettable first experiments with drugs, and other joyous modern initiation rites for kids making the transition from a world they know too well but want to leave, to one unknown and full of new opportunities.
For everyone else — whether they went through these trials or not — the record is pretty damn catchy, which, lately, is all one can ask for.
