It’s quite hard to believe that Sum 41 have been with us as a band for 23 years. Throughout their career there have been some extreme lows but also incredible highs. One thing that has remained a constant is the love that the band gather from everyone, whether they would consider themselves a “fan” or not.
Written straight off the back of their 2018 tour, lead singer Deryck Whibley wanted to get straight into the studio and poured all of his energy into the politically charged 7th album “Order In Decline”. This is probably the most visceral and heavy they have ever been as a band and some of these songs are ideally built for the live scene. “Out For Blood” is a good indication of what is to be expected for the majority of the 10 tracks. It shows them hitting harder than before as does “Death In The Family” with a chorus you can just imagine being sung back every night on their upcoming tours. Album highlight “45 (A Matter Of Time)” is the most accomplished track on here all culminating in a breakdown that Muse would be proud of.
Sometimes the pace does feel a little continual and therefore some of the tracks do end up merging into one another. “Out For Blood” does get a little lost in everything as does “Eat You Alive” which out of context of the album would probably sound great but in its place feels somewhat incidental. “The People Vs…” is straight up thrash metal and musically sounds like Metallica would have released in the past 10 years.
Whilst it might not hit those highs of “All Killer No Filler” or “Does This Look Infected”, it certainly has a lot more energy than a lot of their more recent outputs. All in all this does sound like a band who have been reinvigorated again and we’ll look forward to seeing you out on the road.