REVIEW: FALL OUT BOY - SO MUCH (FOR) STARDUST

4/5

City Of Stardust. 

Is it 2003 again? In the same first quarter of 2023 that has seen the 'TRUSTFALL' of early 2000s icon P!nk release a new album with exclamation, epic emo-era act Fall Out Boy are back to make a point in the madness of March with the brackets of 'So Much (For) Stardust'. So much for, or so much? You be the judge. The Chicago bulls are back in the pen with producer Neal Avron for the first time since 2008's 'Folie à Deux' like a Gaga 'Joker' sequel with Joaquin. So much for stardust. Or hell freezing over Eagles. After the 'Mania' of 2018 they're back on their old label Fuelled By Ramen like trying to get the sticky tab off. Full circle, this is all poetic and meant. 

But how's this for a coincidence? On the same New Music Friday that Lana Del Rey releases and asks 'Did You Know That There's A Tunnel Under Ocean BLVD', featuring a track about the crack to gold honour repair of the Japanese art of 'Kintsugi', Fall Out Boy release a new album featuring a track called 'The Kintsugi Kid (Ten Years)'. Overcoming all the pain that almost broke these American sweethearts. "Passed my old street, the house I grew up in/It breaks your heart, but four of the Ramones are dead/I felt you at the beginning, but needed you at the end/We're going low, low, low, low", Patrick Stump sings from the liquor and the "chemical haze." 

More than a decade. More like twenty years since F.O.B. and ramen took this to their grave. But noodling more mood music for the aggravated angst in modern malaise, the band are back like the 'Big Hero 6', 'Immortal' days of 2015's 'American Beauty/American Psycho' moviemaker, or when bassist Pete Wentz was one of the most famous faces in the world, let alone his band of brothers. Spearheaded by two signature singles ('Love From The Outside' and 'Heartbreak Feels So Good') it all feels like the good old days...even if we were a little too emotional. The latest single 'Hold Me Like A Grudge' keeps that notion tight. And it also gets cinematic like Lana thanks to 'Dead Poets Society' legend Ethan Hawke's 'The Pink Seashell' interlude (from 'Reality Bites') even more inspired than his TED talk. That's Maya's Dad for you 'Stranger Things' kids who aren't really 80s babies, running up that hill. 

There are plenty of favourite records here to keep Vecna at bay, making you levitate. Getting back to the way they used to do things, ramen at the ready, there's no 'Fake Out' here singing, "Take a knife and cut through the darkness/Castle-temp red wine/But I make no plans and none can be broken/No plans and none can be broken/Remember us just like this forever/But this can't last, won't last/So, make no plans and none can be broken/No plans and none can be broken." Finding 'Heaven' in 'Iowa' it all feels 'So Good Right Now' to the tune of Robert Byrd's co-wrote, "And all of our wildest dreams/They just end up with you and me/So, let's drive until thе engine just gives out." Barking at bubbles, boss born to run again until this album gives out at the title track, you'll be screaming 'What A Time To Be Alive' like Drake and Future in precursor. 

"You are what you love, not who loves you", Stump once sang with Elton John as they went back and forth to 'Save Rock and Roll'. And now in this pop/punk realm he holds up a mirror of affirmation for you to sing 'I Am My Own Muse' along. It's an acclaimed album of finding exactly that in yourself, even if you have to go back and 'Baby', it's 'Annihilation' for the competition like, "An alligator prince with crocodile tears, too many to count/Permanent head-cold dreams awash in your love, fallin' in and out/Time is luck, and I wish ours overlapped more or for longer/Orange leaves bore the ones falling off trees/The first time I took the mask off, just had another one on underneath/I'm just melted wax on a birthday cake, another year fades away/Charcoal crushed, pixie fever, angel dust," as Wentz becomes a spoken-word star with this moving monologue. 

Yet for these Windy City GOAT's, it's the 'Flu Game' that takes it personally like MJ (no, not the one they covered with John Mayer for 'Beat It', but 'The Last Dance' one)." One day, every candle's gotta run out of wax/One day, no one will remember when they look back/I can't stop, can't stop 'till we catch all your ears though/Somewhere between Mike Tyson and Van Gogh." DAMN! Boxing clever, fall out. The boys are back in town. Somewhere between art and a knock-out punch. Sunflowers on the canvas. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Playlist Picks: 'Flu Game', 'The Pink Seashell (Feat. Ethan Hake)', 'The Kintsugi Kid (Ten Years)'.