When bands move towards a catchier, poppier sound the results can often be disastrous. Fall Out Boy is a band that’s managed to avoid that problem. Despite shedding most of their punk tendencies in favor of a more pop, hip hop, and arena rock oriented sound, depending on the album, they’ve put out a slew of fantastic work throughout the last decade. The greatest shift occurred with their last album, Save Rock And Roll, an anthem-filled comeback full of interesting guest appearances. Now, only a year or two later, the band is back with another effort, American Beauty/American Psycho.
This album suffers from a variety of problems but the most problematic is its lack of any real distinctiveness in the songs. Each song feels like a lazy variation of the other, the only real difference being whatever poor attempt at wit is being repeated in the chorus. Unfortunately, those lyrics are Fall Out Boy’s worst yet, prioritizing vocal melody to a cringe worthy extent. The album’s singles, “Centuries” and “Uma Thurman”, are the only songs with any shred of memorability but only because their annoyingly repetitive choruses.
All of this repetition wouldn’t be half as bad if the sound being repeated were any good. The album’s sound reeks of overproduction, and, most of all, overconfidence. Fall Out Boy’s strength has always been their ability to combine witty lyrics, pop hooks, and punk rock sensibilities. However with this effort they’ve delved too deep into the dark, utilitarian, magicks of pop, resulting in an utterly bloated and insincere sound for the entirety of this album. The saddest part is the utter exclusion of guitarist Joe Trohman and drummer Andy Hurley as their parts have been simplified to a mind numbing extent when they’re featured in the songs at all.
Has this album ruined Fall Out Boy? Not yet for this fan, as there are still many fabulous Fall Out Boy songs to listen to and they put on a wonderful live show, as I was lucky enough to witness during the summer of 2014. However, I believe the best course of action for myself, and any other Fall Out Boy fan, would be to pretend this album never happened; hopefully Fall Out Boy does too.
Rating 2/10
