Stars: 4.5 / 5
Over three years after Fall Out Boy dropped “American Beauty/American Psycho,” they have returned with a brand new album riddled with hits to rival their classics. “Mania” hosts a style all its own, mixing the teenage-angst riddled lyrics Fall Out Boy fans have come to love with some more electronic beats.
Since the debut of their hit album “From Under the Cork Tree” in 2005, the group only seemed eager to keep moving up in popularity. They became a staple of the rising pop-punk genre in the early-to-mid 2000s, but Patrick Stump’s wide-stretching vocal range and the combined song-writing skills of himself and the band’s bassist Pete Wentz kept people coming back. In the 14 years since the group’s inception, they’ve held three No. 1 albums on Billboard’s Top 200 chart.
The latest album begins with the heavily-electronic influenced “Young and Menace,” which is one of the most techno-based tracks in the bunch. This was the first single released from “Mania,” and it boasts a similar rock-techno mixture to songs like “The Mighty Fall” and “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark” from the 2013 album “Save Rock n’ Roll.”
“Young and Menace” is a a departure from the classic emo-rock sound fans are used to hearing from the group, but it still stays true to its lyrical roots with lines like “Woke up on the wrong side of reality / And there’s a madness that’s just coursing right through me.” It certainly starts the album off with something new, which may deter long-time fans, who are used to a certain sound.
From there, tracks like “Champion,” “Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea” and “The Last of the Real Ones” bring the familiar sense of teenage head-banging, scribbled-on sneakers and the emotional release everyone needed in middle school back in full-force. These three particular songs are some of the more fast-paced singles on the album and bring back any interest that may have been lost from “Young and Menace.”
Of course, no album from a group founded in the golden-age of emo culture would be complete without its slower songs. “Mania” fills that space with “Church,” “Bishops Knife Trick” and “Heaven’s Gate.” While the former two still boast a heavy beat, the latter stays slow and emotional like the kind of rock song audiences wave a cell phone flashlight for.
“Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)” — sixth on the track list— best summarizes the overall feeling of “Mania.” It combines the ever-increasing use of electronic elements with the classic alt-rock sounds Fall Out Boy is best known for. It includes what will likely become the most quoted lyric from the album: “I’ll start wearing black when they make a darker color,” a statement that gives homage to the group’s roots with the “punk rock outsiders” that brought them into the limelight so long ago.
“Mania” shows Fall Out Boy’s commitment to continued growth of sound and style as the years go on. The album has already earned them their fourth No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, and will likely only gain traction from there.
