Avril Lavigne
Love Sux LP

Suck in a deep breath. Let it out slowly. It has finally arrived. It may not have been the longest of timespans since the last album, but it has been a while since Avril Lavigne did a punk/pop album. Love Sux lands at a moment; there’s a huge whirlwind of activity in this space right now with Travis Barker seemingly gluing together the most collab-centric resurgence of a genre ever witnessed.

With this in mind, you’ll notice three high-profile collaborations on this album. What I wanted to talk about, though, is how this record gets better the more you crank it up. It’s recorded well enough that making it louder just makes everything pop right out. The voice, the drums, the guitars, the bass – it all cuts right through.

The songs are high quality and blink-182 short. The whole album is 33 minutes and 29 seconds in length, almost two minutes shorter than Enema of the State with the same track count. When you write songs like this, there’s no chance of over-playing a hook or dragging things out. It’s musical concision of the highest order.

The songs are also consistently good. The singles are all here: ‘Bite Me’ and ‘Love Sux’ are great demonstrations for the record, rather than stand-out blinders. The songs that haven’t (yet) been plucked onto seven-inch form easily could be. For me ‘Kiss Me Like The World Is Ending’ has a great stomp, edging it marginally across the line to take the lead as the best track on the album.

Historically, musical snobbery has led people to dismiss the pop/punk genre. If you review the historical record, though, you’ll find that for every ‘fuckin-and-touchin-and-suckin’ hidden album track, there are ten artistic endeavors that are no less valid for being played at 160 beats per minute. Love Sux is an album with no comedy bonus track; just twelve heartfelt anthems of which many are rapid.

We love the epic vocal-centricity of Head Above Water, but just as Afterlife was what fans needed from Ghostbusters, Love Sux is what we needed from Avril.