Sum 41 - Underclass Hero

Are Sum 41 the band that punk forgot? Having come to fame a long time after Green Day and Blink-182, the two bands that they so obviously mimicked, their attempts to mature their sound have been markedly less successful. They may have outlasted Blink, but while Green Day have gone on to become one of the biggest rock acts in the world after American Idiot, Sum 41 are wallowing in relative obscurity, having seen their scene overtaken by emo acts like Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco or more po-faced bands like My Chemical Romance. It hasn't helped that, as they have sought to be taken more seriously with last album Chuck and its political messages, lead singer Deryck Whibley has married pop-punk princess Avril Lavigne, which can't have gone down too well with the mohawked-masses. Underclass hero is another attempt to take the Sums further into the world of serious music from their roots as gurning punks with Judas Priest and gore movie fixations. Basically, the album is summed up in a statement from Whibley saying: "It's a deeply personal statement that reflects the confusion and frustration in modern society." You might have already guessed that from the inclusion in the tracklisting of a song called Confusion and Frustration in Modern Times, but it's good of Whibley to clear it up for us. If we were Avril Lavigne, we might be a little concerned about his rather bleak state of mind since they got hitched, but maybe he used up all his sense of fun helping her out on her last album. Of course, Sum 41 are still at heart a three-chord punk band, and no matter what the lyrics are, you know that they are going to get an album with lots of pretty good pop-punk songs and Underclass Hero has plenty of them. There are also awful moments like the 'hilarious' French parody Ma Poubelle, which is a bad throwback to their wackier days, while the politico-rambling of March Of The Dogs is just them belatedly copying Green Day yet again. When they stick to decent pop songs, Sum 41 are quite pleasant, but this overlong and occasionally dull album emphasises why they'll always be punk's poor relations.

Scott Matthews - Passing Stranger

Scott Matthews wants to be Jeff Buckley. It's obvious really. His voice sounds a lot like him, and he has filled this debut album with the kind of eastern mysticism that Buckley liked to swirl around his material, with definite influences from fellow Black Country natives Led Zeppelin as well. However, while Buckley and Robert Plant used their voices to powerful effect, Matthews has his sights set on being a bit more understated, with the likes of Elliott Smith and John Martyn also clear influences, and this leaves Passing Stranger feeling a little bit Grace without the exciting bits. Which would be fine if there was anything as quiet and beautiful as Buckley's cover of Hallelujah, but there isn't, and that means that this album sounds like it is something a little bit more special than it actually is. With tabla introductions and lovely production values as well as that excellent voice, the only thing it is lacking is the songs. There's just a few too many of them that pass by without making any kind of impact whatsoever, and those that are good just aren't anything particularly special. Matthews has a talent, to be sure, but he needs to channel it better than this to live up to his heroes. However, this is still a very impressive and confident debut. Which is why it made it into our Top Albums of 2006 list when it was first released, and now it's back again with a bonus disc entitled The John Leckie String Quartet Sessions. As the name suggests, it's Matthews doing five of his songs with the backing of a string quartet to give them even more grandeur. It doesn't make this an essential release for anyone who already has the original album, but it certainly makes it an even more worthwhile buy for those not yet converted by one of Britain's best young singer-songwriters.

Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons - Beggin': The Ultimate Collection

Frankie Valli's most prominent recent activity has been a few cameo appearances as a gangster in The Sopranos. He's actually still touring with a version of The Four Seasons as well, but obviously his days as a relevant contemporary artist are long gone. So why is there another new compilation of old hits? Beggin' is a slightly different collection, and the clue is in the title track, recently released as a single with a remix by French musician Pilooski, giving it a slightly more modern sound, but keeping the feel of the original intact, mostly basing the approach on the success of the JXL remix of A Little Less Conversation by Elvis. Pilooski also gives The Night and Who Loves You the same treatment, with equal success, though they do all rather end up sounding quite alike. The real problem is that they don't sound much like anything else on here, which isn't helped by the diverse styles that Valli and The Four Seasons dabbled with in their decades of hit-making. From the street-corner doo wop flavour of Walk Like A Man and Bye Bye Baby (Baby, Goodbye) to the disco of December 1963 (Oh What A Night) and Grease, there's no guarantee that anyone would actually enjoy all of Beggin', and throwing in some remixes only confuses matters more. There's lot of great songs here from a diverse talent, but there are better compilations out there and this relatively short one (where's Sherry?) could have done with slightly more focus.