eMusic Review 3
Eight years ago, most pop-punk bands would have swallowed their pride and bubblegum to trade places with Fall Out Boy. But ever since 2008′s Folie à Deux, an expansive, swaggering disc rightly acclaimed by critics but received by many fans with a distaste ordinarily reserved for post-Green Album Weezer, even FOB hasn’t shown much interest in being FOB: Singer/tune-writer Patrick Stump reinvented himself as an R&B crooner with 2011′s even sharper Soul Punk, which, of course, really brought out the haters; guitarist Joe Trohman and drummer Andy Hurley went metal with the Damned Things, whose 2010 album Ironiclast completely bombed; lyricist/bassist Pete Wentz lost a guitarist and a singer before his electronic Black Cards could even release an album.
So Fall Out Boy are back with a chip on their shoulders and mixed messages in their music: They’re pissed at the folks who wouldn’t accept deviations from their original sound, yet suddenly they’re out to rescue it, as if they’re now the sole emo survivors. “How’d it get to be only me?/ Like I’m the last damn kid still kicking that still believes,” Stump sings in the final, title track featuring an Elton John as strikingly solemn as… read more »
