Album Review: Fall Out Boy - 'So Much (For) Stardust'
One of punk’s most controversial outfits is back after five years. After saving rock and roll, walking the line between beauty and psychosis and painting the town purple, it’s time to shine and sparkle. Bring on the stardust.
Taking a new stance from 2018’s Mania, the Chicago rockers are back to where the guitars strum loud and the dances turn to moshes. Fans and critics alike were blown away - in many senses - by this lavender-tinted LP and there were wars. But the bridge was rebuilt by the stellar lead single ‘Love From The Other Side’.
Paired with ‘Heartbreak Feel So Good’, it gives that warm and familiar feel that old-school fans enjoy with a sense of maturity. This was a sound many would argue Fall Out Boy should have moved onto back at the tail end of the 2010s; but that band has a tendency to zig when the rest of their industry wants to zag. As the two beginning tracks of the album, it’s only a taste of what is to come. But this never means the expected can be expected.
As far as sounds get played around with and manipulated by the dynamic duo themselves, frontman Patrick Stump and bassist Pete Wentz, there are still grounds unexplored that were investigated within this 13-track tale. With hints of more mainstream elements and even touches of indie within tracks such as ‘So Good Right Now’ and practicing how to hide sad themes in happy beats again in ‘What a Time To Be Alive’, there will be division. There will be wishes for the “good old days”, and voices once again yelling how they prefer “the old stuff”, but that comes with the Fall Out Boy territory at this point.
Ending with the all-star title track, a near five-minute festival of a tune, the album will end with questions being asked and thoughts racing. The truth is there will possibly never be a more confusing band than Fall Out Boy: listeners will like it but don’t know why, or not like it and wonder why, or maybe somewhere in the blurred space between it all. In the end, never fear change and never get angry at a music act’s wanting to switch it up and keep themselves on their instrumental toes.
So much chaos, so much blending. So much for a simple music style in the 2020s. Welcome to So Much (For) Stardust.
Words by Jo Cosgrove
