LESS than two years after the release of third album Infinity On High, the Fall Out Boys return – and oh how they’ve changed.
Born of the Chicago hardcore scene, their previous works have ploughed the trusty pop-punk seam so beloved of white middle class youths across the pond. But their latest album eschews the fast and furious muted power chords of hardcore, instead plumping for arena-filling stomp, funky rhythms and radio-friendly flourishes.
From NOFX, through to Green Day and on to Blink 182 and Sum 41, pop with a punky edge has been the mainstay of alienated American adolescents for two decades or more – putting up a good fight against parent-baiting hip hop.
Indeed, Fall Out Boy and their angular-haired emo compatriots were last year blamed by The Daily Hate for a spate of teen suicides. One listen to Folie à Deux should lay claim to that preposterous charge.
This is uplifting stuff: conflicted, yes; sometimes depressed, certainly; but ultimately, utterly life-affirming.
Or as Patrick Stump pointedly sings on first single I Don’t Care: “I don’t care what you think, as long as it’s about me; the best of us can find happiness in misery.”
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