Album Review: Fall Out Boy - Folie a deux

I can understand that there may be a lot of reasons why people do not like Fall Out Boy:

Patrick Stump’s nasally whine of a voice.

Pete Wentz’s manic midgetness.

The woah oah oah oah’s that haunt every second song as either a bridge or a chorus (or is that actually every song?).

Their habit of giving their songs long and meaningless names.

The fact that this band, who named themselves after a sub-character in the Simpson’s TV series now have a member who has actually married a real life Simpson.

Moving onto this album and still considering things not to like:

No lyric sheets for those non woah oah oah oah moments.

The song names are all written in their mirror images on the back of the cd. i.e. you need a mirror to read them (coupled with the fact that they are still as irritatingly named as above).

The fact that the band seem so successful when you just know that there are many, many better bands out there who are not as successful.

So then what about the album, all things considered being equal?

Stump is actually not whiny all the time this time. The music is rather good. The songs are strong. They only use woah oah oah oah in three songs.

Surprisingly this album is actually quite good. The songs work and Stump sings really well with the band picking up some likable grooves that have started to showcase some of their influences too. It is almost as if this is the first time they are revealing something of their true identity through their songs.

My conclusion: if you have always liked FOB, you will love this. If you have never heard FOB before, listen to only this album, you make like it. If you have heard FOB before and hated them, give this one a try it’s actually quite good.