Review Summary: The pop punkers turned popstars fourth album is a record of extremes. It varies from catchy pop brilliance to bland and mediocre filler but sadly we are treated all too often to the latter.
The last twelve months have been very interesting for pop punk. To my mind the genre has never been more diverse than it is at this moment and in 2006 almost all the big players have put out new albums and surprisingly, for such a normally predictable genre, very few of them have stuck to the usual pop punk format.
Panic! At the Disco for all their shortcomings have at the very least a spark of originality with their “pop punk goes to the cabaret” style and have attempted to bring the spectacle back into the mainstream.
My Chemical Romance released what was hailed by many as a huge breakthrough and created a kind of pop punk opera.
Taking Back Sunday attempted to release
Tell All Your Friends part III and as with
Where You Want to Be they were unable to find the magic and finally,
Brand New showed that they are still a million miles ahead of the game with the fantastic
The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me. So we come to perhaps the biggest player in the whole contest, the infamous
Fall Out Boy. Despised by metal fans worldwide and shunned by their original fanbase, this time round the pop punk megastars that are
Pete Wentz, Patrick Stump, Andrew Hurley and
Joseph Trohman have taken the step that sparks fear amongst pop punk fans the world over, they’ve decided to make a
“Mature” album. I’m not sure whether its the fans reluctance to accept change or the lack of talent possessed by most of the genres artists but rarely does a band manage to pull off the mature album without alienating their core support and failing to appeal to convince their original detractors.
Of course maturity is a broad term which can take many forms,
New Found Glory decided on
Catalyst that the key was to play both heavier and softer at the same time whilst maintaining the most simplistic of songs styles; needless to say it was a huge flop.
Blink 182 thought the key was in a bizarre amalgamation of Goth and power pop which made for a reasonable listen at first but quickly grew tiresome; on the other hand
My Chemical Romance took one look at Freddie Mercury and had their answer there and then. So how have Fall Out Boy done it? What drastic changes have been made? Well the answer is really very few. For a supposedly different album its remarkably similar to
From Under the Cork Tree and continues the gradual move the band have made from a pop band with punk influences to little more than a guitar based pop band. If we were to pretend that
Blink 182’s Self Titled album never happened and that
+44’s When Your Heart Stops Beating was
Take off Your Pants and Jacket’s successor then you will have some idea of the changes that have been made. It’s essentially the same kind of music as before only with a few extra instruments thrown in and a little experimentation. With that being said however there is no reason this cannot be a great album albeit a somewhat mislabelled classic.
I enjoyed
From Under the Cork Tree and
Take This to Your Grave is in my opinion one of the finest pop punk albums ever recorded. Infinity on High does have it moments but for the most part it feels very rushed and uninspired. Maybe three or so of the songs would be worthy of
FUCT but practically none are good enough for
TTTYG. To start the music on a positive note we have
Hum Halleluiah. Musically it’s a simple as Fall Out Boy have ever been and sounds reminiscent of the
TTTYG days. For this album it’s quite a quick song, the tempo as a whole has significantly gone down when compared with past albums. Patrick has got the vocals spot on with a quick exchange of lines occasionally broken up with his high pitched croons. The production in general sounds huge and the choral segment towards the end, sung over crunching muted chords adds something a little different and is pulled off supremely. The lyrics are in typical Fall Out Boy style which is another one of my complaints about this album and it treading little new ground. Pete Wentz, the bands chief lyricist is a master of the tongue in cheek arrogant style that has become the norm within the genre, yet there are only so many songs you can write about myspace before you’ve got ask if Pete really has anything else to say.
The real problem with album as a whole is that unlike anything Fall Out Boy have ever done (other than their hideous debut,
Evening Out With Your Girlfriend) whole sections just seem to pass by without anything worthy of note.
Thriller is a decent opener, it contains a long clean section and what really could only be considered a metalcore breakdown, coupled with a very nice chorus,
“So long live the car-crash hearts, Lie on the couch till the poets come to life , Fix me in 45” and it’s somewhat of a grower. Yet follow up
The Take Over, The Break’s Over wouldn’t even be good for a B-side. The opening is interesting and sounds ripped from
Boyfriend by
Ashlee Simpson but the song quickly descends into a blur and feels like the band are just going through the motions, yet were only at track two, where surely the band should of put their strongest material. Now consider that
Golden, Thnks fr th Mmrs, Don’t You Know Who I Think I Am, Your Crashing but Your No Wave and
Fame < Infamy are all worse than such a blatant example of filler and you get an idea of how much effort was put into the making of this album. Personally I'm of the opinion it takes a good two years for a band to tour and release a follow up album yet Pete Wentz claimed the band could have had this out in November 2006, mark my words it shows. Where as
FUCT and
TTTYG had those witty one-liners and just little intricacies which made both albums a success I honestly can barely think of one moment on Infinity on High which makes me stand up and think “Oh that was pretty cool” or “I’ll listen to that part again.”
The first single
This Aint a Scene, its an Arms Race (Even the song names seem rushed) shows what they could of done had they taken another six months to make this album. The intro is original even if it does sound like the
Backstreet Boys and the chorus,
“I'm a leading man, and the lies I weave are oh-so intricate oh-so intricate,” and more importantly Pete’s backing vocals sound excellent. I’m sure after two million MTV plays this song will grow to annoy me but right now I’m enjoying it more than most of what
Infinity on High has to offer.
I’ve got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea, That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth from
FUCT showed that Fall Out Boy could perform slow songs effectively and they’ve have attempted to repeat the formula here with varying degrees of success. Piano ballad
Golden lacks any vague element of a catchy moment where as
The (After) Life of the Party is fantastic. It sounds very influenced by Post Punk bands like
Joy Division with quite monotone vocals at least for Patrick Stump, In fact the band do a modest cover of
Love Will Tear Us Apart which is worth a listen.
In many ways Fall Out Boy are very much the successors to
Blink 182’s vacant throne on the head of the pop punk bandwagon. They inspire devotion from their legions of fans but at the same time are despised by both critics and those who like to consider themselves more sophisticated music fans. With hindsight Blink made two great albums,
Dude Ranch and
Enema of State, then proceeded to release to some pretty shaky efforts whilst riding the success of their triumphing achievements. Fall Out Boy have both the excellent and more credible breakthrough release in
Take This To Your Grave and the mainstream “sellout” album in
From Under the Cork Tree. So is
Infinity on High their
Take off Your Pants and Jacket? You bet it is. Sure it has a few solid hits and embraces a very slightly more experimental era but it is so consumed will filler that it’s hard to consider it any more than a rushed release designed, as
Take Off Your Pants and Jacket was, to quickly follow up a bands mainstream success so as to avoid losing the casual fans that had made this band one that manages to sell out arenas across the globe. Have a listen to
Hum Hallelujah and a few others but I can’t recommend much more than that. With any luck the band will spend a lot more time on their next effort and create something which better displays their obvious talent for pop music.
Recommended Songs
Hum Hallelujah
Carpal Tunnel of Love
This Aint of Scene, It’s an Arms Race
The (After) Life of the Party
