5 out of 5

Label: Island

Producer: Jerry Finn

Eff you, Jerry Finn!

The Finnmeister has produced the shit out of some shit in his career, making blah bands sound about ten million times more amped than they deserve to sound.  He twisted Blink-182s pretty standard snotty punk into thumping single-selling madness, and though I stand by the development of Sum 41 as a group, Finn was undoubtedly a massive assist in shaping up the same snotty sound from their initial EP into something more notable and mature, correctly latching on to their winning elements – the light genre mash-up of stupid rhymes and heavy metal riffs – and layering on an amazing sheen to bless All Killer, No Filler as a full-on album of catchy goodness.

But note some of my phrasing there – that Finn cannot work magic on all of the material, so a good deal of how much fun this album is is, of course, due to the band.  While the lyrical “fuck you authority” content won’t surprise anyone, it’s fitting for the band’s genre and their age at the time of this recording, which didn’t really seem true of Blink-182, even earlier in their career, as they were a few years past the teenage anthems they were spitting to their crowds.  But I bought Sum 41 as teenage upstarts, and it’s why their development over the years into a rounder, rocksier sound has seemed natural – unlike the forced maturity of Blink’s self-titled album, which I admittedly dug, but it just felt like a purposeful bid for growing up instead of part of the group’s evolution.

Anyhow, “All Killer” is aptly named, but what makes it a touch above is that there is filler, it’s just really good.  Every song has a notable hook or chorus or breakdown, but the group is wary enough to throw a lighter pop song or a faster snarly song into the mix so that it’s not all just samey singles with or without distortion, and along these same lines, all of the songs feel written…  Which is actually true of all the Sum stuff, including that first EP – it feels inspired, energetic.  Except, maybe, for the track they gave to the Spider-Man soundtrack, I don’t feel like I’ve heard a phoned in Sum 41 song.  After “Infected,” another masterpiece, the group would stumble through lead singer Whimbley’s marriage and divorce and the loss of a core member, and general aches and pains of becoming adults and wanting the music to grow with them.  Here on “Killer,” though, they’re still having sooo much fun, and beyond the thumping thrill you get from every song, if your throat tires from singing along and you sit back and listen, you’ll probably be pretty amazed – as I still am – at the guitar and drum and bass chops going on here.  It’s not just three-chord madness, there’s some insanely wacky noodling happening.  Drugs?  Youth?  Who cares.  Get over it – this was a great pop-punk album.