Fall Out Boy are at a weird juncture in their career, ostensibly at the top of their game but starting to slip, maybe temporarily, or maybe the beginning of the big downward slide from pop culture phenomenon status. "I Don't Care" would have broken their impeccable run of major label singles thus far if that surprisingly awful "Beat It" cover hadn't done the trick already, and they'd been losing rock radio support even before pop radio started to lose interest. Folie à Deux comes less than 2 years after Infinity On High and doesn't present much of anything new about the group on the surface; the stadium rock stomps and piano and horn arrangements, even the left-field cameos are pretty much the same (just swap out Jay-Z for Lil Wayne, rinse repeat). It'll maintain the moderate critical acclaim the band won with Infinity, but it won't build on it substantially.

And yet, as much of a non-event as Folie à Deux threatens to be, it's by far Fall Out Boy's strongest album, and if it's not great, it's the closest thing to great they'll probably ever accomplish. The lack of standout singles (at least, until "America's Suitehearts" hits) to tentpole the tracklist is actually a point in its favor, because instead the album feels like just one killer tune slamming into the next, "Disloyal Order Of Water Buffaloes" and "The (Shipped) Gold Standard" feeling particularly massive but really all of it working. The aforementioned Lil Wayne popping up on "Tiffany Blews" to croak some ridiculous FOB lyrics might be the high point of his whole misguided singing career; fuck T-Wayne, I'd rather hear an album of WeezyWentz. They'll always be saddled with emo, and Patrick Stump's somewhat overrated falsetto will always mark him as one of modern rock's more capable and soul-influenced singers, but at heart they're really just a shameless power pop band who didn't get the memo about power pop bands toiling in obscurity without the recording budgets to make their hooks as shiny and loud as possible.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 24, 2008 at 11:33 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.