Its pretty good practice to be leery of any band that beats out the Backstreet Boys on TRL. At the same time, because a band is successful doesn't make it automatically awful. The proof is Sum41. Their third album, Does This Look Infected, is most definitely rock made by a real band, not some marketing teams creation. You can despise those dancing boy groups, but how can you hate a band whose loves Iron Maiden? Well-aged music is like well-aged wine. Extremely tasty. So is this cd.

First off the album is not as punk and pop sounding as there previous two. Not that Sum41 has abandoned their trademark sound; they have just expanded on it and seem more metal. Deryck sings of the complications and entertainment of growing up while Dave "Brown Sound" provides the appropriate guitar sound that Sum41 has so effectively spread to the radio. Dave seems to be one of the only mainstream musicians today that knows what a guitar solo is and on top of that, he can play one. Additionally, the structure of the songs are varied enough so that Does This Look Infected doesn't sound like a 60 minute song like a lot of punk albums seem too (Or a Britney albums seem to for that matter). And one even ends with the great refrain you're an asshole. This is a solid effort and an indication that Sum41 indeed is the exception to the rule on MTv.

They rock not suck.