Review Summary: The “Don’t Call it a Sum-back” tour is aptly named. We all hoped for a true Sum41 comeback album, and we partially got that.
The “Don’t Call it a Sum-back” tour is aptly named. We all hoped for a true Sum41 comeback album, and we partially got that.
To truly understand the album, one must look at the lead up to it. Five years ago, Sum41 released the polarizing Screaming Bloody Murder to the public. It was “eh”. Some good songs, some bad songs, and some songs we all forgot about but think we remember to be decent. Then Sum41 committed career suicide, literally. Deryk basically died after years of being a raging alcoholic. At this point, many were unsure if Sum41 would ever make a comeback.
Obviously, they did, releasing Fake My Own Death back in June of 2016. It was heavy (for some), had the punk flare that was more or less missing in Screaming Bloody Murder. The comment section was hyped for three reasons. The first I just mentioned. The second, Sum41 actually released a new single after waiting for five years. The third was the return of Dave “Brownsound” Baksh. The original lead guitarist and solo giver, his return provided some nice hope for the band. They now had three guitarists, well, more like two and a half.
Correct, 2.5 guitarists. Don’t believe me? Check out the video the Fake My Own Death; Deryk hits a few power cords, does a riff, and then just sings for most of the song with his guitar in front of him. Sure, he does some playing during the bridge, but he doesn’t really do much. They had a huge chance to have Dave and Tom be a dual attack with Deryk providing rhythm, and yet they chose to keep the standard two. Is it a huge problem? No, but it is a bit of a let down, because dual-guitar Sum would’ve been amazing.
But now on to the meat of the album itself; it opens with A Murder of Crows, which notable for its orchestral introduction. Somewhat polarizing, I happen to enjoy it, especially since I am a cellist myself. It is an enjoyable opener. This brings us to the main problem with the album, it is forgettable. Out of a ten track album, I can only remember four right off the top of my head, and one more once the opening begins, and three of them are the singles. The other is The Fall and The Rise, which is a nice throwback to Does This Look Infected’s Thanks For Nothing, one of my all time favorite Sum41 songs. The other is A Murder of Crows for the opening. The other five tracks are quite forgettable.
With that being said, I really only did not enjoy There Will Be Blood because it sounded and felt like a filler track, which is not appealing. With that said, the other four aren’t exactly bad, but they aren’t memorable. The songs show some of the extrmemes the album goes through, Breaking the Chain is the obligatory ballad, not including War, and it shows the recents softer rock, “poppy” feel Sum gives off. The punky side is covered by Fake My Own Death and The Fall and The Rise, so don’t fear. Yet no matter how they feel, they are still forgettable at worst and pretty good at best.
And finally, the singles. I already mentioned the first, so the second one released was War. If you don’t know the story behind that song, it is the first song Deryk wrote after recovering, and it is a personal struggle with falling back into old habbits or moving on. The story is important with this one, because if you don’t know it the song sounds somewhat contrived/ pretentious, which is rarely a good thing to have in a song. The final single, God Save Us All (Death To Pop), is a very enjoyable song, and something quite nice for all us metalheads and punks out there, who absolutely hate the generic, repetitive garbage known as pop music. An enjoyable song, though I wish there was a bit less post production on Deryk’s vocals from time to time, it doesn’t really fit, unless you consider it a satire. It has a pretty amusing placement in the album though, right after War: the slow, “poppy” ballad of the album. It would’ve fit better, in my opinion, at the end of the ablum, the beginning, or after Fake My Own Death.
The singles give a very good representation of what the album consists of. Part of it is hard-rock/ punk-rock as exemplified in Fake My Own Death. The traditional pop-punk sound in God Save Us All (Death To Pop) and the rock ballad songs are shown by War. Is that a bad thing, no, you know what you are going to get before buying the album.
The album as a whole is not bad and is definitely enjoyable, unfortunately, if flew right under the radar. Compare the amount of ratings 13 Voices got to any of Sum41’s other albums right here on Sputnik. This one hasn’t even, at the time of writing, scratched 200. The other LPs that they have produced way over what 13 Voices showed.
Did Sum41 make a comeback album in 13 Voices? Well, yes and no. Yes, their album is enjoyable to listen to and yes, it showed that they can make good music over a decade since they released the well-received All Killer, No Filler. However, it really flew under the radar, not picking up enough steam to show the world that, “Yes, we can still make a huge record”.
So should you buy it? I can’t recommend not buying because it is a fulfilling album, but if you want the most bang for your buck, just buy the singles and The Fall and The Rise, and you will get the same experience as the album itself.
