February 4, 2007
Success does funny things to rock artists. In clumsy hands, it can upset the raw music-making process, inflating ego at the expense of the artistic id. But when everything clicks, fame and acclaim can serve as a form of empowerment, a shot of creative adrenaline that leads to greater things.
With "Infinity on High," it's clear that Fall Out Boy falls into the latter camp. The group's fourth album reveals a smart band that is supremely confident in its instincts -- assured of its place in the rock world and brave enough to toy with it. Two years after "From Under the Cork Tree" propelled the band onto radio programmers' playlists and into MTV viewers' hearts, Fall Out Boy has crafted a hearty record that places the group firmly atop the popular rock heap -- all while winking at a savvy audience that knows it's a guest on the ride.
Since emerging earlier this decade somewhere near the confluence of Jimmy Eat World and the Offspring, plying standard pop-punk that veered between earnest and cheeky, the Chicago quartet has carved its own distinct place. "Infinity" plays off those strengths, and some of these 14 songs would have found a comfy home on "Cork Tree." Opening track "Thriller," "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs" and "Don't You Know Who I Think I Am" (not a Replacements rewrite) are Fall Out Boy prototypes: drama-tinged tunes with personalized lyrics from Pete Wentz and top-end drumming from Andy Hurley.
But this isn't merely a rerun. "Infinity" comes with a grand, if not grandiose, vision, and the aesthetic is more akin to the roaring, soaring sound of the Foo Fighters than to the compact pop-punk that marked the band's earliest work. As Fall Out Boy has grown big, it seems, so has its music.
Driving, ready-for-radio cuts such as "The Carpal Tunnel of Love" and "Hum Hallelujah" are veritable anthems that teem with supersized hooks and swelling choruses.
Fall Out Boy takes a few musical detours, most notably on the handful of tracks ("The Take Over, the Break's Over," "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race") that come with limber funk upgrades, their punk crunch replaced by syncopated rhythms and squirrelly guitar. Babyface, the R B kingmaker who dominated '90s pop radio, lends a touch to the sleek "I'm Like a Lawyer," a vocal showcase for falsetto-primed singer Patrick Stump.
Through it all, the common link is the band's inarguably infectious sense of melody, a trait that keeps the foursome squarely rooted in the classic pop tradition even as the it aims for something entirely modern. "Infinity on High" won't reshape the world or even the rock canon, but in 2007, it's a choice example of big-time mainstream rock.
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