The first studio album in three years from the “Pop Punk Queen,” Avril Lavigne, delivers on all of its potential. Her seventh album in total, Love Sux was produced by veteran hit-maker John Feldman (among others including Mod Sun and Travis Barker) and has a ton of aggressive and hard-hitting songs that are sure to grab your attention. In a recent interview with NYLON Magazine, Lavigne shared this about the direction of the new record, “This is the first one that’s just rock all the way through. There was a point in music where the label was like, ‘Radio don’t want to hear guitars anymore.’ Live drums went away. Live electric guitars weren’t getting played. There’s always been that fine line that I’m going to make my music that I’m feeling but also you have a company behind you who influences what you’re doing.” This dedication to making the music she was driven to create makes for one of her most accessible and rewarding albums to date.

I’ve always had a relative soft spot for Avril Lavigne, not because her career is built from consistently solid albums (in fact, Lavigne’s discography is infamously spotty, marked by great pop singles and not much else), but because I always felt like she was unique in the landscape of pop music. It’s not just that she worked with Butch Walker on pretty much all of her best songs—though that certainly didn’t hurt—but rather that her sassy punk image and her loud, distinct personality always showed through in her songs. Lavigne was at her best on her second full-length—2004’s Under My Skin—where a dark pop style (on the Walker-penned “My Happy Ending”) and a rebellious tone (the other big single, “Don’t Tell Me,” which radiated a genuine girl power message that not many pop stars have been able to replicate since)—set her apart from the other pop music on the radio at the time. Other than Pink (who, big surprise, also utilized Walker as her go-to co-writer and producer), no other female pop starlet of the early 2000s gave off the same in-control confidence. Here was a pop singer/songwriter who was going to make the music that she wanted to and do it her own way, damn anyone—especially the label—who tried to tell her otherwise.