10 Legendary Rock Bands That Made Metal Albums
2. Chuck - Sum 41
Most of the metalheads around the early '00s seemed to turn their nose up at something like pop punk. Whereas bands like Linkin Park and System of a Down were keeping heaviness on the charts, acts like Blink 182 were practically just the same boy bands of MTV that just happened to be playing guitars and having safety pins through their noses. In between the more artificial side of pop punk though, Sum 41 knew they wanted to reach for something heavier on Chuck.
After already flirting with thrash metal on songs like Still Waiting off of Does This Look Infected, this entire album practically drops the entire punk label altogether from the very start. For all of the people that still remembered these guys from songs like In Too Deep or Fat Lip from a few years prior, We're All To Blame was a much different animal, going for meaner guitar tones and making something that could stand alongside the likes of traditional metal.
While there are still some occasional pop tracks like Some Say, the real draw is the seriousness behind the heavy stuff, like the sorrow of Angels With Dirty Faces or writing their own version of a Metallica song on the Bitter End. Seeing how they doubled down on heaviness later down the line, this was just the start of Sum 41's next phase. Those pop punk kids had grown up, and now it was time to make the kind of music that you grew up listening to.