:: Fall Out Boy - Take This To Your Grave

Fall Out Boy

Hailing from Chicago, the questionably named Fall Out Boy share the punk sensibilities of their label-mates Jimmy Eat World and Melbourne‘s own rabble-rousers, Blueline Medic. On this, their full-length debut, the four-piece show themselves to be adept at ploughing the tried and tested furrow of contemporary American punk-pop. Quirky song titles ('The Pros and Cons of Breathing’, ‘Reinventing the Wheel to Run Myself Over’) promise a left field approach, though unfortunately the music proves to be workaday U.S. teen-punk. That said, Take This To Your Grave is not without its charms. Album opener, ‘Tell That Mick He Just Made My List of Things to Do Today’ kicks off proceedings well enough. Fast and frenetic, bursting with adolescent energy, soaring harmonies entwine with the snotty lead vocal to produce something approaching exhilarating. Add to this a neat, albeit caustic turn of phrase (“Lets play this game called ‘when you catch fire’/ I wouldn't piss to put you out”) and we have a good start. From here our brash dilettantes whip through the rest of the disc at a consistently break-neck pace, which tends to bleed the songs into one another. Lyrically, Fall Out Boy swing between visceral and rubbish, and the entire record appears to be on the one subject: Boy meets girl, girl dumps boy for another, boy becomes embittered, bile-spewing stalker. And so with each song the listener is brushed with aural deja vu. Yet on the whole, this is a decent first crack that many fans of the genre will doubtlessly enjoy.