Fall Out Boy are big enough in America that this album's original release date (November 4, election day) was changed so as to avoid distracting the public's attention from Obama and McCain. The band made their millions by offering catchy complaint-rock, epitomised by their 2007 hit This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race. Folie à Deux is mainly more of the same, but its guest list (Elvis Costello, Debbie Harry et al) trumps fellow emo-peddlers My Chemical Romance and Panic at the Disco. Why Costello decided to lend his world-weary vocals to the ensemble-style power ballad What a Catch, Donnie is a whole other question, but his presence adds clout to an otherwise pretty unremarkable album. Patrick Stump is an impassioned frontman, and shows what he can do on the ambitious, multi-segment WAMS, but there's only so much creativity he can wring out of this conventional rock.
Mercury