Pete Wentz writes in the lead single of Fall Out Boy’s newest album “M A N I A” that “We were never supposed to make it half this far.” Looking back on seven studio albums and a successful return after a three-year hiatus, that seems hard to believe. This latest installment draws from rather than falls back on their punk roots with a total disregard for what people think they should do. “M A N I A” was supposed to be released in September 2017, but was pushed back until Jan. 19 because the band felt it wasn’t where they wanted it to be.
"I'm never going to put a record out I genuinely don't believe is at least as strong or valid as the one that came before it,” lead vocalist and guitarist Patrick Stump said in a tweet, “and in order to do that we need a little bit more time to properly and carefully record solid performances."
As if in order to make up for the delay, the band released what ended up being half the album as singles and music videos. While that satisfied the fans and tided them over until the album dropped, it made the initial listening experience a little odd. Four of the first five songs in the track list are singles, and I found myself wanting to skip to the songs I didn't already know and not experience the album as a whole.
And what an interesting whole it is. About half the songs have the pop punk sound the band established in 2013 when they came back from hiatus. But while the backbone of all the songs is still the guitars and drums instrumental to rock, they haven’t let that limit their sound. “HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON’T” features a dancy Latin beat, “Heaven’s Gate” has all the sensuality of an R&B track and the hip-hop influences and featured rapper Burna Boy in “Sunshine Riptide” make it as lazy as a summer’s day in California or the Caribbean.
Not all of these surprising sounds are unprecedented. The band’s first single, “Young and Menace,” turned some fans off from the album with its EDM and dubstep influences and breakdown in place of a chorus, but “Death Valley” from their 2013 comeback album “Save Rock and Roll” features a short dubstep-esque breakdown in the bridge. Rapper Big Sean contributed a verse on “Mighty Fall” from the same album, but while his lyrics were in the same vein as Wentz’ verses, Burna Boy’s verse referencing Hennessy and weed in “Sunshine Riptide” connect more to the hazy feel of the song rather than the rest of Wentz’s lyrics about uncertainty and doing the best with what he has. This only adds to the irony of the song, because the lyrics on this track are some one of the most complex on the album and most similar to other Fall Out Boy lyrics, but the song is sonically very different.
Wentz’s lyrics on “M A N I A” are more accessible and understandable than they have been in the past — though Stump’s distinctive mumbling still makes an appearance now and again. Wentz flirts with cliche by including “I’ll stop wearing black when they make a darker color” in “Wilson (Expensive Mistakes),” and the metaphors in “Church” are a little on the nose — “If you were church, I’d get on my knees” isn’t exactly groundbreaking. But we can forgive Wentz his sin of lyrical simplicity when we hear the dramatic and powerful church bells and choir backing up Stump. The most powerful metaphor, however, is in the last verse of the final track, “Bishops Knife Trick,” when he describes trying to recapture lost time as trying to put a broken hourglass back together. That beautiful and heartbreaking image is just the cherry on top of an emotional and melancholy song that sounds like the last kiss between lovers on the top of a building before one leaves the city and the other can’t follow.
The most “Fall Out Boy” songs on this album appeal to the disenfranchised and disillusioned who are frustrated with their times but aren't going to go down without a fight. Stump sings he is the “champion for people who don't believe in champions,” and the absolute banger “Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea” rages about the childhood heroes who have “fallen off or died.” Almost every track alludes to the mania of the title, introduced in “Young and Menace” by sampling Britney Spears’ “Oops!... I Did It Again,” which is a very public example of the breakdowns we all go through privately, as Wentz writes in the annotated lyrics on Genius. The songs are about being dissatisfied and uncomfortable with society and just wanting to escape from it and the different ways used to combat these feelings, such as alcohol, drugs, therapy, even love. But with lines like “If I could live through this/I can do anything,” in “Champion” and “The only thing that’s ever stopping me is me” in “Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea,” the continuation of this theme is that no matter how hard or dark it gets, you can and must keep going.
“M A N I A” is a departure from Fall Out Boy’s “traditional” sound that fans of the first three albums might decry as selling out or just “not Fall Out Boy.” But wouldn’t doing what is expected of them be the opposite of the punk rock attitude those fans want? By experimenting with and re-imagining their sound, Fall Out Boy has created an album that is true to the themes and values of their past discography while refusing to settle for what is safe or comfortable.