Sum 41

Before Sum 41's breakthrough in the early '00s, we would have never imagined a brash and ballsy middle ground between Blink-182 and the Beastie Boys, but here it is — coursing through the rapid-fire rhymes and locomotive chords of "Fat Lip," the distortion-doused riffs and buffered harmonies of "Still Waiting" and "In Too Deep," the metallic melodies and snarling lead vocals of "We're All to Blame," and a straight-faced love song called "Pieces." If that isn't enough to pique your interest, know this: Iggy Pop himself recruited Canada's finest pop-punk stars to provide a chug-a-lug backing track and interlocking hooks in "Little Know It All."

And then there are our Next Steps, which see nothing wrong with switching between Maiden-schooled metal and brittle balladry.

Founding Sum 41 guitarist Dave Baksh left the group after its Chuck tour, but there's no denying the arena rock aspirations he brought to the band on its first four albums. A vocal Iron Maiden fan with more than a faded tour shirt to prove it, Baksh twisted "Grab the Devil By the Horns and **** Him Up the ***" into a fast and furious New Wave of British Heavy Metal tune, right down to its jeans-hugging high notes. Aside from that, he churned out devil horn-wagging chords in "Pain for Pleasure" and "Over My Head (Better Off Dead)." As for what Sum 41 sounds like without Baksh, Underclass Hero shows signs of heart-shedding maturity, ensuring the band's got quite a career ahead of them still.

When Sum 41 first stormed the airwaves with such inescapable pop-punk singles as "Fat Lip," "In Too Deep," and "Makes No Difference" talk quickly turned to the Blink-182/Green Day-sized aspirations of our neighbors up north. And the band quickly met its hype halfway, with several successful tours and a series of subsequent hit albums that recently peaked with the 2007 platter Underclass Hero. Released after a brief break — one that was spurred on by the departure of guitarist Dave Baksh and the production work of frontman Deryck Whibley for his wife Avril Lavigne — it debuted at #7 on the Billboard Album chart, quickly becoming the band's highest first-week bow yet. It also showed new shades to the group's songwriting, from the acoustic guitar flourishes of "With Me" to the pressure-cooked tension/release dynamics of "Walking Disaster."