Sum 41

Half Hour of Power

(Island Records)

Sum 41 shows off a decent sense of humor on its new album, “Half Hour of Power.” Unfortunately, it’s supposed to be a band, not a stand-up comedy troupe.

The album starts off with a satiric poke at Satanic-themed heavy metal with “Grab the Devil by the Horns and **** Him up the ***.”

The band redoes a pack of familiar-sounding 1980s thrash metal riffs over a wordless minute, which, combined with the title, clearly skewers the excesses of the genre that spawned Metallica, Anthrax and Slayer.

The rest of Sum 41’s album is not quite as clever.

Most of the tunes are happy punk singalongs similar to those from No Use For A Name or Less Than Jake, minus the ska horns.

The group’s music, in a genre where originality isn’t always prized, doesn’t rise above the pack with musicianship or songwriting. Both are adequate, but nothing special.

The band also makes the mistake of taking a good joke too far by putting “Ride the Chariot to the Devil” on the second half of the album.

The second time around, it’s about as funny as Jim Carrey was in his second “Ace Ventura” flick.

Sum 41 also introduces “32 Ways to Die,” which begins as a drum solo and finishes with about 30 seconds of lukewarm punk. It’s a very strange track, as if the group just needed to fill a spot on the album.

The group does make up for this by spitting out songs such as “Makes No Difference,” a short, fast, catchy tune with a hummable chorus. It’s the definition of what a band like this, midway between pop and hard core, should do.

Another standout track is “Second Chance for Max Headroom,” which is genre-bender of a song. It masquerades as straight-up punk for two minutes, then chills out with jangly guitars, kicks into a ska-punk flavor and returns to punk, all within about 30 seconds.

There isn’t much to say about Sum 41’s lyrics, in which a collection of unclear, personal observations are spit out by the two vocalist-guitarists who are foolish enough to want to be known as Bizzy D and Hot Chocolate.

The band’s most effective lyrics are the Kid Rock-style bragging in “Dave’s Possessed Hair/It’s What We’re All About,” a song that recalls the mid-1980s Beastie Boys.

The band’s copying of white rappers is another indication of the members’ eclectic tastes, which at least keep the album from the evils of predictability.

All together, “Half Hour of Power” comes out to about half a decent album.