Review Summary: The only songs worth checking out from this era of FOB are on here.
Believers Never Die (Volume Two)
Okay so lets get this out of the way, FOB have made a lot of crap since they came back together. Even if you hate them and think that they never made a good album you have to admit that the new stuff has nothing on the old stuff. The last FOB album (MANIA) was more experimental, they probably saw that their 2008 album (folie a deux) was starting to get praise despite being hated by fans in 2008 for being more experimental. So they tried to redo folie a deux basically, but that album lacked the soul of folie a deux and also everything that makes that album worthy of being called a masterpiece by die hard fans. I myself think that the only good FOB album from this era is American Beauty which has some really catchy songs that are fun to listen too despite not being perfect. Save Rock N Roll was really boring imo (for the most part), and MANIA was an identity crisys, one that gave us the worst fall out boy song (young and menace) which thankfully is not present here. Okay now that you know how i feel about this era of FOB we can move on to the actual review.
The Phoenix and My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (which i will refer too as "My Songs" from now on) are the first songs here. My songs is the first one here and it's a great song, the songs from save rock n roll that were chosen for this are the only good ones. The song is about how they for better of for worse, (100% for worse) they are not the same band they were when they went on a hiatus, about how they were being milked for money, which is really ironic considering everything that would follow. One complaint I have about this and a lot of fob songs from this era is that they are too repetitive. While the verses to this song are really good, the chorus is to repetitive. They say "ooh oh oh oh" so much (same with the line " so light em up"). Otherwise this song was a good way to say "we are back bitch".
The Phoenix comes next and god it, I love how much punch this song has. The drummer and Patrick carry this song hard. Pete really wrote a great song here, both the lyrics and chorus are great this time around. The song is about how they are passing rock to the younger generation but they aren't doing anything with it and how modern music isn't music (oh how ironic coming from the guys who made MANIA). The composition of this song was inspired by by Soviet Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich which gives the song some much needed character.
Alone Together and Young Volcanoes are the last songs from Save Rock N Roll that are included in this compilation and while they aren't as good as the first 2 they are still alright. The intro to young volcanoes is too similar to the one too my songs, but it doesn't ruin the song. Their lyrics aren't too interesting but comparing it to songs that came after...yea no let's just be happy with this. I like how Patrick laughs for a bit at 1:30 on the song Young Volcanoes. Young Volcanoes is a fun song and Alone Together is an okay song , nothing wrong with them but also nothing that makes them great either .
Then we go into the American Beauty/American Sellout portion of the album.
We start off with the band's biggest hit which is Centuries (judging by views on YouTube and plays on spotify) and...it's not that bad. It's really ironic that this song is kinda forgettable, like it's well written and the chorus is good but it doesn't really stick with you in the same way something like Sugar were going down or Thnks Fr Th Mmrs does. I really like the 2nd verse of this song: "And I can't stop till the whole word knows my name Cause I was only born inside my dreams
Until you die for me, as long as there is a light My shadow is over you 'cause I am the opposite of amnesia And you're a cherry blossom You're about to bloom You look so pretty, but you're gone so soon", that verse hits hard . The song is good but their biggest hit? Yea it doesn't deserve it.
You know... atleast Centuries was a good song, sadly I can't say the same about Immortals. It's so average, the chorus is a bit catchy, the drummer does disappointing job on this song. The bass is...there? It probably is idk. I hate the thing that Patrick does at the start of the chorus where he goes "im-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-mortals" with some weird voice effect. I don't understand how tf that song got so much success (like 189 million plays on spotify? wth).
Uma Thurman is next and it's...whatever, it samples the monsters theme which just makes me wanna listen to that song instead of this one. Its a fun song but a really forgettable one at that... The lyrics to this song are pretty meh. I just wanted to hear the monsters theme more then this and just looked forward to hearing it again in this song lol. The chorus is...the same thing from immortals. I like when he says that death will doom us all because he is clearly talking about this band...
Irresistible comes after and idk what to say the drummer carries the song imo, the lyrics are nothing special and holy *** the auto tune in the chorus is awful, am i the only one who notices how bad the auto tune is? Like patrick can sing really well, so why does he use auto tune? Is it mandatory or what? Anyways...You will want to go back to this part of the compilation cuz what comes next is just pain...
And just like that the American Sellout portion of this compilation ends and we move on to the MANIA portion of the compilation which...thankfully only has 2 songs.
Champion is the first one and what can I say, its ***...I like this line a lot "I'm just young enough to still believe, still believe But young enough not to know what to believe in". Besides that the song is repetitive as ***. He repeats "if i can live through this" like a billion times, especially in the last minute of the song. There is a good song hidden here under the awful production and repetitive chorus, i would say the same about everything on MANIA. If they took a bit more time to fix the production this could have been something special.
Now we move on to The Last Of The Garbage Ones which is so generic holy *** i feel like i have heard this song a billion times. The auto tune on Patrick's voice is awful like oh god why...just why. The lyrics are pretty meh, about as boring as you can get. The chorus is not that catchy tbh. Nothing to say about this song, it's one of the better songs on MANIA but still not a good song, not even a good FOB song... MANIA PORTION IS OVER
Time for I've Been Wai-nevermind its not available in my country...oh well, let's move on i guess...sorry guys. It probably sucks tbh.
Dear Future Self (Hands Up) is the single they released at the same time as Father of all mfs by green day and The end of the game by weezer, they all released these at once to promote their HELLA MEGA TOUR. This song is basically, a good song + a rapper thrown in there to make it suck like most of the 2010s fob songs. I can't understand what Patrick says half of the time which is a positive somehow, if you want to get into fob then go by this rule: if you can't understand the lyrics then you are listening to a good fob song. The rapper feature is there just to say "She windin' like she losing her mind, yeah". The lyrics are self explanatory, the music video is probably the most normal FOB video yet somehow. This song is better then everything on MANIA tbh... It's catchy it's fun it's not that cringy and the only problem is the rap feature that is as useless as you can get.
LAST SONG
Bob Dylan
This is one of the best 2010s FOB song because, this is basically 50% old sound and 50% 2010s sound which makes for a great song that will please most fans of both old and new fob. The song has some okay lyrics i guess, it has nothing to do with bob dylan, its more or less just another love song sadly, Bob Dylan I only mentioned in the chorus "everyone love bon dylan". The guitarists do a good job on this and it's nice that you can actually hear the guitars. Despite me loving this song i can see why it was left over from American Sellout, it doesn't really fit on that album so it's nice that it was released as a bonus track here.
These songs are the only one's worth checking out from this era of FOB (maybe listen to the title track of American Beauty American Psycho). If you don't like FOB this will just make you hate them and if you like FOB then you have probably already listened to this. We can all guess that after the hella mega tour they are going on a hiatus again hopefully they will comeback with some back to basics songs with clever writing, great choruses and that are also memorable. Until then we are stuck with this ***. If im being honest this compilation is only worth a look if you like the old stuff and don't know what to listen too from their current stuff. Don't think this era of FOB will be remembered as being good. As this compilation ends so does this era of FOB. If you want to get into FOB just listen to the first Believers Never Die compilation. Thanks for reading this
