Record Label: Island Records
Genre: Pop Punk
Band Link: link
Buy on Amazon.com link

I’m really doing my best to hate this. Because I fucking hate Fall Out Boy. Or at least I hate that bassist guy, who has to be the douchebaggiest douchebag I’ve ever seen. I had a subscription to Rolling Stone for a while, and they seriously couldn’t go an issue without showing at least one picture of the bassist dude. And it’s a shame because the rest of the band are probably cool guys. I mean, I actually think the singer has a really good voice.

So this is not a punk album. I don’t really thing it was meant to be; it sounds much closer to what Pink might do. That said, it has a few punky tracks mixed in with some full-out pop songs like the first single ‘This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race’, which sounds like it really should be sung by an American Idol (except for the political lyrics). I almost thing that the band doesn’t need to get all loud and guitary halfway through the song, and that it would be better as this partly electronic R n’B song. In the same way I really liked the Higher, I think these guys know how to write decent pop songs, and they’re almost embracing that here. This is really really well produced, and although some of it is over-produced, it has the right type of sound that a pop album should.

But before you completely doubt my credibility as a reviewer, there are a couple things I should mention. The album starts out really strong with a few really good tracks, but starts to peter out mid-album. It almost seems like they wrote half of a good album and rushed the other half of the tracks so that they’d have enough for a full-length. By the end of their album, I’m already bored of their shtick, the whole innocent poppy punk thing. Yes it sounds nice all the way through, but the only folks that will listen to the whole album are the tweens and teens that have clearly seen the bassist’s schlong whether on the web or behind one of the venues. But it’s more important that these guys write a couple good singles (which they have) and then posture for music videos (which they do) and make their record company some money (which they will).

So as a whole the album isn’t all that special. It’s not bad in that there are some great tracks, especially some fantastically catchy chorus hooks. It’s just that the album getts bogged down in the fact that it has to be a full-length. These guys would have benefitted if we were living in the era of the single. They could have put one out every few months and compiled them in a couple of years. That way we wouldn’t have to worry about the filler tracks.

Hopefully these guys might expand their sound even more, going a bit more experimental, taking their pop and punk tendencies and adding something else. And for the love of gord, get rid of the bass player.

Bottom Line: Some good tracks, but as an album it’s really not consistent. Plus I hate the bass player.
Notable Tracks: Thriller, Hum Hallelujah, The Take Over The Break’s Over
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