Artist: Sum 41

Album: “Underclass Hero”

Label: Island

Release date: July 24

Availability: CD, iTunes

With Sum 41’s “Underclass Hero,” the band follows the footsteps of Blink-182 and Green Day with a more mature subject matter and tries to grow up by throwing an assortment of social commentary around. While neither is a bad thing to do, this album sends the two subjects to their breaking point. The band sounds as if they are trying to make the entire album an anthem for the underachievers and slackers of the world.

The title track starts the album, followed by “Walking Disaster” and “Speak to the Devil,” which appear to be ballads and bury themselves in the slacker-glorifying, anti-system”-type of lyrics. “Walking Disaster,” especially, stands out as the song of a child apathetic about his family. Farther into the album, the sounds become redundant, relying heavily on keyboards and acoustic guitars, with some songs reminiscent of My Chemical Romance and AFI.

But Sum 41 is neither emo nor metal — though they flirt with both genres, the band is somewhere in between. This is an ambitious album, including the lyrics “Ladies of gentlemen of the underclass, the president of the United States is dead.” After an intense start, however, it begins to fall into stereotypes in its loathing of “the system” and its purported anthem of the slackers and, by the end, the sound and continuous lyrics make it seem juvenile.