It's Out!

Well Sum 41 released their new single "March of the Dogs", or rather their iTunes single, since their official single was announced to be a different song, and would be released on the 7th may, and the new album would come out sometime in early June or late May at a recordstore near you! (also available for free on the internet!) Deryck Whibley announced it to be in the same style of "Still Waiting" and "We're All to Blame", but honnestly I hear nothing as such in this song. Luckily for them (otherwise I would've been doubtful), he also announced that this song would be the only political song off the album. Good thing, because Sum 41 are not supposed to be fully political just like some other bands decided to be one day when waking up in the morning...*cough GREEN DAY cough*.
So here are the lyrics, though you don't care for them, they'll be useful as marks as to the breakdown of the song's different styles and inspirations.

Ladies and gentlemen of the underclass,
The president of the United States of America,
Is Dead!

I don't believe in the politics,
Of chosen fools and hypocrites,
Who walk a line that stretched so fine,
Is death or glory had in mind?

And here we go,
I guess the resolution,
No-one knows,
Who'll lead this revolution now,
Attention grows,
The way to a conclusion,

It's too late there's no time, (its too late there's no time)
All for none, never was two, three, four

March of the dogs,
To a beat of disillusion
Sworn under god,
Breeding panic and confusion,
The white flag is down,
Send in the clowns,
The carnival of sins is now going to begin,

It may be I'm a pessimist,
But I say we need an exorcist,
The root of all evil standing tall,
Under god and above us all,

And here we go,
I'm getting desperation,
All we know,
Is confusion and frustration,
Ditch your clothes,
No vision of salvation

It's too late there's no time, (it's too late there's no time)
All for none, never was two, three, four

March of the dogs,
To a beat of disillusion
Sworn under God,
Breeding panic and confusion,
The white flag is down,
Send in the clowns,
The carnival of sins is now going to begin,

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
A-one, two, three, four

Another president dead,
Because they blew off his head,
No more kids to be led,
Yes to heaven he fled,
Was it something he said,
Because of who's in his bed,
By who will we be led?
By whose hand will we be fed?
All the lies by the lying liars who said
We'll be fine,
It's OK,
Hey look mom no head

La la la la la la la
(random)
It's OK, it's alright

At first when the bass and drum kick in with the guitar's one note lead it sounds like a potential NOFX/Descendents punk song, but once the guitar riff goes on it's definitely like the Descendents, a good reference that sounds pleasant to the ear. But then *onoez!* once the guitar has ended its riff and introduces the lyrics, it sounds very scarily and strikingly like Green Day, and once Deryck's voice comes in, you might wonder "Cool they did it like Green Day" if you're an optimist with bad references, or "Oh no they're doing it like Green Gay" if you're a pessimist with bad references but that are not yours! But luckily the lyrics are more appalling than Green Gay.

Then once Deryck sounds singing, we're back in Sum 41. But the music, unusually expressing a happy and playful tune, sounds like either early Sum 41 if we mixed it with something else, OR more strikingly Blink-182! But then when you go to "And here we go, I guess the resolution..." the answer is obviously clear: Blink-182 incarnated into Sum 41. The recipe of their song "Go" from their latest self-titled album has been clearly copied/pasted in this part, with the same beat, a similar melody, and a high, yelling back voice going "GO! GO! GO! GO!" (or something else maybe like "Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!" or yelling out a sentence word by word - undetermined yet). Then when we go to "It's too late, there's no time" it sounds like earlier Blink-182 from TOYPAJ, and it goes on till the chorus... with lyrics referencing the Carnival of Sins, a live album and DVD by Mötley Crüe, which Sum 41 had opened for when they were on tour.
Then we go to the second verse, deeply comfortable and blatantly expressing a continuing Blink influence, with a loud bass just like in the song "Go", once again! Then the pre-chorus goes on...
But once Deryck goes on to his "All for none, never was two, three, four" it sounds just like the early Sum 41 pop-punk melody, just this one line! Then we get the chorus again... still Blink...
Then the bridge. With the same "Hey!"s as in the song "No Reason" from Sum's last album "Chuck". Then it seems like we're back to some Green Gay with their "ONE TWO THREE FOUR" yelled in a megaphone. But then the bridge riff sounds good, like a new Sum 41 style, or perhaps more like we're back into the Descendents! But a very good sounding bridge overall! Well written and entertaining! They couldn't've putten a Green Gay like bridge there otherwise it would've been disastrous.
Then go back to their American Idiot-style of music. But we have in the lyrics assonances and rhymes which are not for the worst, and lyrics that are more mature than Green Gay's in my opinion.
But what's that?! Once this verse is over, the outro starts off, in a 3/4 rhythm, sounding a big deal like... My Chemical Romance! What the hell? A roundabout-like sounding melody, with "lalalalalala"s, and random words being yelled out, sounds like a carnival, but ending in an original Sum 41 way with voices just giving up. And that's "March of the Dogs"
Now listen to it completely without reading this big part.

So what do I have to say about this one song?? Well, although the references and the inspiration that Sum 41 got from this song are not of the elite in terms of today's modern "rock" music (it's actually all the biggest mainstream pseudo-pop-punk-teen-emo-lame-rock bands), this is overal a good song. Why so? Because the bridge is solid, well written, and gives an acceptable excuse to the band for copying bad band's styles. I actually like Blink-182, just not their latest stuff that much, just like most fans, if not all. But also, when you know it's Sum 41, and when you weren't expecting anything in particular from them (like metal or pop-punk), you can just accept this song much more easily. I know Sum 41 well, they have changed throughout the years, no two albums of theirs are identical, and so I can accept this song by them, they even announced themselves that it would be the only political song in the album, so it's all good in the hood, yo! The Blink references are not bad, the Green Gay parts are the scariest, the bridge is solid, all in all a good song, and at least Sum 41 did not try to keep up their hard rock style and just went backwards with this song. So it's actually a good thing I find, they said themselves that they couldn't keep up with metal and the experience they did with Chuck, and I think that it's wise to want to go backwards or take a different road keeping the same style.
Let's hope that the whole album is varied, and stays in the style of the talent of Sum 41, and also original! No copies, please!
Last sentence: obviously, Blink would've written the music to this song if it were them!

From Toronto with....well Ajaxians on his blog...meh,
-Teoman