Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 05/02/07
Label: Mercury

One of rock's most interesting dilemmas is that of the post-breakthrough album. Just what is a band sired from a culture of credibility supposed to do once it's transcended its appeal beyond its core constituency? History has shown us a number of options: Nirvana, for example, riding high on the crest of "Nevermind"'s success, elected to record an album so raw that it practically bled while more recently My Chemical Romance dug their heels in and struck out with the bleak vision of "The Black Parade".

Of course, there's always the flipside as principles are thrown to the wind as the pursuit of fame and fortune becomes an end in itself; witness Razorlight's shameless whoring with the vacuum that is their eponymous album. So it is that Chicago's purveyors of emo Fall Out Boy find themselves in the unenviable position of playing to the gallery, whilst attempting to satisfy their hardcore supporters. It's precisely this quandary that's resulted in the conflicting collection that is "Infinity On High".

Though still knocking out the pop-punk with which they made their name, Fall Out Boy's fourth album is characterised by a blinding sheen that has smoothed out their rough edges as they hurtle inexorably to the stadiums of their homeland. Predictably, with the high-production values come the big names: Jay-Z mumbles away on the blink-and-you'll-miss-it "special intro" to "Thriller", while elsewhere Babyface's guest turn at knob-twiddling results in the quartet becoming a facsimile of Maroon 5 on "I'm Like A Lawyer…". The track's appearance on the "O.C." is surely a foregone conclusion.

With such frenzied buffing and smoothing out of the bumps, Fall Out Boy's desire to appeal to as wide an audience as possible becomes cruelly apparent. "I've Got All This Ringing In My Ears And None On My Finger" may show that bassist and lyricist Pete Wentz has a way with titles, but the aping of Scissor Sisters is horrendously counter-productive, coming off as an ill-advised pastiche that wasn't called for in the first place. Conversely, "Hum Hallelujah" unsuccessfully hangs on to some sincerity by its fingernails courtesy of the track's appropriation of Leonard Cohen's source material.

Ultimately, "Infinity On High" is a self-conscious piece of work that merits way too much consternation from its creators given the simplistic musical fare on offer. Though they plead their case on "Thriller" - "make us poster boys for your scene / but we are not making an acceptance speech" - Fall Out Boy's assertion that "crowds are won and lost and won again / but our hearts beat for the die hards" is simply impossible to believe.

    by Julian Marszalek