The last album from everyone’s favourite tie-over-T-shirt pioneer was 2019’s underwhelming, dreich Head Above Water. Which, thanks to the pandemic, feels like yesterday and a decade ago all at once. Love Sux finds Avril Lavigne returning to the early 00s pop-punk roots that made her name and produced MTV-saturating hits such as Sk8er Boi. It’s a nostalgic vibe heightened by this being Lavigne’s first record released on Travis Barker (of Blink-182)’s DTA label, and there’s a collaboration with the band’s singer, Mark Hoppus, on All I Wanted; perhaps the album’s best track. It’s all much needed, high-energy fun.
Lead single Bite Me is a vengeful crash of drums and guitar directed towards an ex who gets short shrift throughout (F.U. is lyrically typical in its “I’m over you” refrain), and, in an enjoyable twist, Bois Lie has rapper Machine Gun Kelly playing the ex. The uncharitable take would be that a 37-year-old still writing lyrics in txt spk is quite cringe, but the truth is that Love Sux – three-minute banger after three-minute banger, complete with classic Lavigne “woah-oh-ohs” – is exuberant enough to have you slipping on a pair of Vans and partying like it’s 2002. It’s an air drummer’s dream.
