Released by: Rise Records

Release Date: Out Now!!!

Genre: Pop Punk Rock

Line Up:

Deryck Whibley – vocals, guitars, keyboards, piano, production, engineering, mixing, recording, art direction
Dave “Brownsound” Baksh – guitars.
Tom Thacker – guitars.
Jason “Cone” McCaslin – bass.
Frank Zummo – drums.

Tracklist:

HEAVEN-
1. Waiting On A Twist Of Fate
2. Landmines
3. I Can’t Wait
4. Time Won’t Wait
5. Future Primitive
6. Dopamine
7. Not Quite Myself
8. Bad Mistake
9. Johnny Libertine
10. Radio Silence
HELL-
1. Preparasi A Salire
2. Rise Up
3. Stranger In These Times
4. I Don’t Need Anyone
5.Over The Edge
6. House Of Liars
7. You Wanted War
8. Paint It Black
9. It’s All Me
10. How The End Begins

It seems like the 90s Punkpoprocksound is back and very popular with bands like SIMPLE PLAN, THE OFFSPRING, GREENDAY, BLINK 182, BILLY TALENT and SUM 41 doing multiple sell-out tours worldwide and releasing new material in the style of their classic albums 20-30 years ago. Covid interrupted the scene since 2020, but now most of the bands that helped shape the sound of the 1990s are back and the legendary Canadian band SUM 41 is one of them.

They released a new double album titled Heaven X Hell, which offers 20 new songs that are split over 2 CDs, a 90s orientated punkpop album and a heavier metal ish album. The band is still active in it’s original line up of the late 1990s (Pierre Bouvier – lead vocals, bass, additional guitar and percussion, Chuck Comeau – drums, percussion, Jeff Stinco – lead guitar, backing vocals and Sébastien Lefebvre – rhythm guitar, backing vocal), and especially CD 1, the so-called “Heaven album”, it is loaded with classic short 90s uptempo Northern American catchy melodic Punkpoprock style songs that are very easy to sing-a-long to, such as Waiting On A Twist of Fate, Future Primitive, the ultra-hit potential Dopamine and Not Quite Myself. It seems like the band is on fire and delivering their best material since their heydays. In fact, a lot of the aforementioned bands are better than ever and making new fans all across the world. SUM 41 are definitely belonging to the champions league in the punkpop scene and this CD 1 will absolutely please any fan of the genre. A playing time of 26 minutes is very short but on the other hand no fillers are included. CD 2 is the Hell side and features some cool classic Heavy Metal guitar riffs, while the songs are a bit less Punkpop orientated than on CD 1, although they still can be qualified as such. Rise Up is the first song and without a doubt it’s a killer tune that has Metal riffs all over the place and also a strong catchy chorus. Other highlights on the Punkpopmetal ish CD 2 are Stranger In These Times, House Of Liars, You Wanted War (cool power/thrash metal guitarsolo’s!) and the ROLLING STONES cover Paint It Black.

Concluded, SUM 41 makes a great return with this double CD set that is mostly pure 90s Punkpoprock orientated, yet on CD 2 they add a lot of Power/Thrash Metal injection to their familiar sound, which is very cool actually.

Written by: Gabor Kleinbloesem