Avril Lavigne - Love Sux

by Zena Grieg

published: 12 / 4 / 2022

Label: PLG UK Frontline
Format: Select Format

Raucously energetic and fiery comeback album from Canadian singer Avril Lavigne which marks a return to her pop-punk roots

Review

Twenty years after her breakthrough album ‘Complicated’ the Canadian singer Avril Lavigne has now released her comeback collection, her seventh album, ‘Love Sux.’ Co-written with Travis Barker, who also produced and plays percussion on it, this new album marks a return to her pop-punk roots. As she described it, ‘Love Sux’ is a “love letter to women…it’s very light-hearted, and there’s a sense of humour in the songs…I want to make a pop-punk record, a rock-and-roll record. I don’t want to be on the piano. I don’t want ballads, really. I just really want to rock out.” Thematically, the focus is on love, its ups and downs in this from-beginning-to-end punk-pop record, laced with racing guitars and short, punchy songs. Highlights of this twelve-track collection include: the exuberant opener ‘Cannonball’, setting off the collection at a frantic pace; the vengeful, fun lead single and video ‘Bite Me’ with its exhortation to an ex-lover to pick up his clothes from her front yard; the catchy duet and single with Florida singer-musician Blackbear ‘Love It When You Hate Me’; the scathing title track with its acerbic, unadorned lyrics: “…not another break-up/When I think of you, I just wanna throw up”; the reflective ‘Avalanche’: “What do you do when the hero needs savin’?”; and, in a change of style, the one piano ballad on the album ‘Dare To Love Me’ with its lyrics revealing vulnerability, a track showcasing Lavigne’s vocal prowess; plus the pithy ‘Break Of A Heartbreak’ bringing the collection to an emphatic close. Raucously energetic, fiery, ‘Love Sux’ shows that Lavigne has lost none of her verve and appeal

Track Listing:-

1 Cannonball
2 Bois Lie
3 Bite Me
4 Love It When You Hate Me
5 Love Sux
6 Kiss Me Like The World Is Ending
7 Avalanche
8 Déjà Vu
9 F.U.
10 All I Wanted
11 Dare To Love Me
12 Break Of A Heartache