THE PEMBROKESHIRE HERALD FRIDAY JANUARY 30 2015


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67 Entertainment Album of the week Post punk pop pap prevails FALL OUT BOY’s new album


is one which it is hard to actively dislike but very difficult to love. But first, a confession: This is not my type of music. I have been exposed to it through the efforts of my partner’s younger children to leave the television tuned permanently to Scuzz, a television channel that features middle aged men wearing tee shirts and shorts interviewing intense young Americans in eyeliner and black. However, I came to this album 2013’s


via Save Rock and Roll,


which I thought was wittier, sharper and better-written than some of the other offerings I had heard on Scuzz. (Top tip gang, shouting into the mic is, well, shouting into the mic. Most of the angst on display boils down to nothing better than sixth-form poetry with arpeggios or a complaint that parents don’t understand kids and that makes them sad and/or angry). On this record, Patrick Stump,


Pete Wentz, Joe Trohman, and Andy Hurley continue to plough their path to accessibility and mainstream success with this latest album. This


album has demonstrably the same roots as 2005’s Sugar We’re Going Down, but is a progression in the band’s sound losing its rougher edges. That is, perhaps, the problem. The album has lots of hooks, even on the less immediately accessible


tracks,


but if you take the bait much of the rest is bland.


That is a pity, because Centuries,


the first single off the album, is a cleverly constructed and written ditty that hits just the right balance between posing and poise.


The


arresting sample of Suzanne Vega’s Tom’s Diner enhances the end product, rather than detract from it. The bombast of the lyrics is nicely undercut by the vocals, which suggest a more ironic take on the song than has been appreciated by US broadcasters who have picked it as ‘colour’ music for sports events.


The title track, however, gives the


impression of trying just a little too hard in the search for significance. It is not that the tune is bad or that the vocals are indifferent – in fact the vocals throughout the album are excellent and full of conviction – it is


with Jon Fall Out Boy - American Beauty/American Psycho • January 26 2014


just that there is no sense of the irony present on Centuries. The song gives the impression of being written as a title in search of song, rather than a song written organically with the title emerging from within it. Still good, though, and worth sticking with. There are, however, some clunkers along the way: Immortals sounds like what it has ended up as, a cartoon (Disney!) theme song. Uma Thurman is trite and album closer Twin Skeletons sounds like the band ran out of ideas half-way through recording it.


Standout track by far is Novocaine, a driving rhythm, good melody are combined with a committed and surprisingly agile vocals. This is the type of American music destined for protracted and repeated play on FM radio, college radio and the sort of rock video channel that wants to play rough, but not too rough. The rough edges to the music have been filed off, even to the extent that the guitars have sunk deep into the background fuzz for the vocals. 6/10


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