25 years ago, the last great pop punk debut was unleashed on the world. The ground shook, the rivers flowed backwards, and visions of Warped Tour appeared in the dreams of every spiky-haired, snot-nosed hooligan and skater. The sum had reached 41; the summer of 2001 was to be All Killer, No Filler.

Chronologically, Sum 41 fit into the second generation of pop punk. They had grown up admiring the first class of punks to bear the label in the late 80s into the 90s and were eagerly scooped up by Island Records to cash in on the proven formula of loud guitars and whiny singing.

The band bore the particular scraping quality of skate punk, putting them in line with the elder blink-182 in terms of the flavor a band could put on the same four chords. But there was also always something metallic in Sum 41’s sound, a thrashy influence that would be expanded upon in some of the band’s later work.

Here, we find a curiosity of the space Sum 41 occupied in ‘00s rock. They were undoubtedly a pop punk band, and some of the tracks on All Killer (“Never Wake Up”) are proper bashers. At the same time, they shared a surprising amount of musical space with some of the rap metal acts that were popular around the same time, particularly the kind one would have often heard, fittingly, at a skate park (Crazy Town comes to mind).

Nowhere is this more evident than on one of the band’s biggest hits, “Fat Lip.” This song has long fascinated me purely for how ballsy it was. Selling rap to pop punk kids is commonplace now thanks to genre-hopping hacks like Machine Gun Kelly, but at the time, it was still a relatively limited market.

The rapping here is simple and functional. Some genuinely funny lines and heavy metal worship build the band up to a huge catchy chorus. I’ve seen this song classed as a nu metal hit before, and while I think that’s a stretch, it’s hard to say that “Fat Lip” isn’t an evident favorite track for me on this record.

“In Too Deep,” the band’s biggest hit and the album’s centerpiece, is another huge highlight. Nominally a break-up song, this track sees frontman Deryck Whibley raging for an escape from the hardest parts of life.

It’s still a simple song – “‘Cause I’m in too deep, and I’m trying to keep/Up above in my head, instead of going under” – but the band’s mindful use of simplicity allows them to connect with a wider range of feeling than some of their contemporaries who kept it just as simple while simultaneously getting themselves caught in snags on more frivolous topics.

“Motivation,” the album’s final single, falters somewhat from the quality of the two aforementioned. The number of “-ation” words used in rapid succession make me feel like I’m listening to someone sing a rhyming dictionary. It does continue the welcome theme of being more emotionally open than some of Sum 41’s neighbors in skate punk, but overall this one still doesn’t connect for me.

“Crazy Amanda Bunkface” stands out as a favorite album track for me. Again, we hear some more metal influence, and we even get a breakdown in the middle. More than anything, though, I think this track illuminates Sum 41’s status as one of the better bands of their genre in terms of musicianship. They benefitted from a fairly strong rhythm section and some pretty rippin’ riffs to back up Whibley’s nasal belting.

I also appreciate the album’s intro, which takes the style of a horror movie narration, and the outro, a NWOBHM parody; both are delivered by drummer Steve Jocz and both add a sense of whimsical ambition to what could have otherwise been just a collection of songs.

Sum 41 is no more of this earth as a band, but they left behind some good memories – and some poignant questions. Why are so many people insistent that pop punk is meaningfully different as a genre from punk rock itself? Why didn’t more bands of the time try to thread the needle and get a little Run-DMC with it? And, indeed, why did the world allow for Simple Plan to happen when we could have gotten more of this instead?

We may never have answers to these questions. Instead, as we look back at the ancient year of 2001, we must simply keep from going under and march backwards into the second half of the 2020s.