ALBUM: Fall Out Boy - Infinity On High

It's been an eventful past year for Fall Out Boy. For the young pop-punks / punk-poppers, From Under The Cork Tree - released in 2005 - has sent them rocketing sky high on the radio-humping strength of singles such as Sugar, We're Going Down and Dance Dance. Since then their lives have supposedly been been filled with hardcore partying, internet exposure of particular band members' cocks ('lil Wentz'), and energetically-charged live shows complete with spin jumps and the like. But admist all of this, Patrick Stump, singer and song-writer in his band has obviously been hard at work writing some great songs. He's always been deemed to not warm to the rockstar life, and here his introverted cave-dwellings have paid off. (It is unclear, amongst all the free penis shows, where Pete Wentz found the time to complete his co-writer duties and actually write the lyrics.)

On Infinity On High, Fall Out Boy still sound like Fall Out Boy. But that's where an incredible advantage is. The songs here all have the Fall Out Boy sound, the Fall Out Boy poetry: but the writing has gone up a notch in terms of diversity. Opener Thriller (complete with track-producer Jay Z cameoing an intro and outro) hovers with guitar arpeggios and pounds like a heart pumped with steroids via metal-style drumming. Lovely vocal melodies soar with Stump's magnificient vox. The second track The Take Over, The Break's Over is commanded into play and struts off its funk flavoured riffage very convincingly, just like a girl whose clothes are very little and sense of formality even less. This Ain't A Scene, the recent single follows in a similar vein, and the only real down-point of the album is the chorus on I'm Just Like A Lawyer... 'Me and you, sailing in our honeymoon.' Seriously, was Wentz high on chick flicks, kittens and big flowery meadows when he wrote that?

The real fist-pumping gems here are Hum Hallelujah and Thnks Fr Th Mmrs. The former flows like any amazing song does. No similes or rubbish metaphors to describe it here, sorry. Reflective verses, anthemic choruses... but the middle-eight will make Jeff Buckley either proud, or turn in his grave - Leonard Cohen would too, but he seems to be still alive. The latter is simply fantastic - the spat-out refrain of 'thanks for the memories, even though they weren't so great' is memorable and warrants a moshpit to be honestly honest.

Golden and The (After) Life of the Party serve as effective balladry; counterpoints for the album - already you can hear that this album has a much better flow than its predecessor. Don't You Know Who I Think I Am? is roadtrip-cool, though the guitar is too high in the mix for it to sound 100% brilliant. Carpal Tunnel Of Love, Fame is less than Infamy are decent in their own right, but not compared to the rest. Track 11 is a treat - Bang The Doldrums - serving as sonic candy. Mmm, eat all the nice-tasting hooks up. It does suffer from a trip-up in momentum with the chords in the second half of the chorus despite, and the evil-sounding middle-eight (basically Pete Wentz screamo-ing his small intestine out). The final track (we'll excuse the bonus track because of its rubbishness) I've Got All This Ringing... is truly a fitting closer. Sounding slightly like a soundtrack befitting a Rocky film in the first few bars, which isn't a bad thing!, the chorus explodes: 'the truth hurts worse than anything, that I could do to you'. Deftly simple lyrics for FOB, deftly heart-breaking when used in this track.

In conclusion to the essay... this is a bloody excellent album. While I myself prefer individual tracks off From Under The Cork Tree (Sugar, We're Going Down, Sophomore Slump, A Little Less Sixteen Candles...), Infinity On High works as a better album and is in possession of many cracking pop songs.
Overall score - 8/10
Get it? - Yes