Review - Fall Out Boy - Save Rock and Roll

Fall Out Boy has always quietly been a very good band parading around as a bad one that only teen girls love. If you look at the critic’s reviews of much of their work, you can see that – for better or worse – many of their albums were positively reviewed. Surprised? Than the next few paragraphs are going to knock you off your socks.

‘Save Rock and Roll’ is a massive accomplishment for any band, especially this one (and in more ways than one). In a time when music popular music is solely concerned with EDM and the dancefloor, Fall Out Boy go a completely different route and put out their most rock and roll effort to date (though, I’m not saying that makes it actually rock and roll). Instead of caving to trends and what is popular, the boys who have made an art out of being quirky and outcasted raise their middle finger and go out of their way to do something that should have tanked.

The album is very brave, considering it is also their comeback. The band has essentially been silent (except for Patrick Stump’s long-winded attempt to become a solo alternative popstar) for four years, and the pop punk wave is far from over. I am willing to be their record label was BEGGING them for a dance breakdown or something. The funny thing is, if anyone really could pull off fusing rock and dance pop, it is FOB. The fact that they chose not to shows integrity we’ve never known them for.

Fall Out Boy are not going to save rock and roll with this CD, but they have done some incredible things with it. Successfully melding pop and hip hop production with area-sized guitars isn’t easy, let alone when you then let Big Sean in on a track. The album feels more like an event than just another release, and it is massive in scale. Lyrically the boys are back, but lead singer Stump has changed and can never go back. He sounds more focused, more intense, and he even shows how he can raise the notes all the way up the scale, Darkness-style.

While ‘Save Rock and Roll’ won’t do what its title promises, nor will it have the same Hot 100 success of the past several albums the band has released, please do not underestimate the sheer power wielded here.

Listen to: “The Phoenix”, “My Songs Know What You Did”, “Young Volcanoes”, everything.

Buy