It’s a fucking shame, it really is, that one of the most exciting records I’ve heard this year has the sheeny, kiss-off texture of a mall-punk band making good on the hook-laden promise and skinny jeans + haircuts look of their previous releases.

Of course, I’m talking about Fall Out Boy.

(insert screams of disgust/adoration in registers so high only dogs can hear them….*here*)

2007 will forever go down in the books as the year of “Wentzy makes good” as heartTHROB slash bassist slash songwriter slash self-penile photographer and his band of not-as-hotties, including that poor unfortunate redneck trucker they enlisted to sing Wentz’s tales of hot topic lust, took that so-catchy-it’s-obnoxious Under The Cork Tree potential that catapulted them into the hearts and minds (and made them the friction in the jeans) of every under-18 year old girl in America and polished off those scattered glistening pop gems and crafted them into an entire album’s work of snarky, love-weary, high-calibre tunage with this year’s Infinity On High.

From the album’s opening moment, a call-to-arms from, of all people, H-to-tha-Izzo V-to-tha-Izzay (that’s the anthem getcha damn hands up) Jay-Z, through the stomp-and-stammer gospel beauty of “Hum Hallelujah”, the entirety of Infinity On High just works too damn well. Produced in part by motherfuckin’ BABYFACE, the album is part party jam, party emo-rock high-jump off the speakers, and party…gospel revival.

That’s right: the fat kid in the trucker hat can siiiing, folks. Like a fucking bird.

Despite all lyrics being penned by Pete “frontman-a-licious” Wentz (and his magical lil’ Wentz, no doubt), Patrick “he of the very unfortunate last name” Stump sings in the exact way he commands his audience to on the album’s first single, “This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race”: until his lungs give out.

It’s moments like that, and others on the album, where Fall Out Boy slip into complete stadium rock crowd-control mastery that usually doesn’t come until many, many world tours and mounds of drugs later (see: Aerosmith). Like their mates in youth and anthems My Chemical Romance (but with less makeup and plastic inflatable bat toys), the boys of FOB know even on record that they’ll have their swooning fans rocking out with their low-rise jeans out, and this knowledge has given them power. Wentz’s lyrics and throbby, jangly bass lines and Stump’s choirgirl falling face first in the PBR vocals combine and create sort of super-human ability to steal all the good hooks and all the catchy melodies in the world, and deploy them like weapons on a public who was ready to write them off.

(oh yeah, there are a couple other dudes in the band, too…or something)

All in all, it just ain’t fair. It just ain’t fair that in a year with the musical release calander containing so much potential, so much epic beauty and goodness, that the only album to really stick thus far both critically and commercially was put together by a bunch of kids who still make hand-in-armpit fart noises for fun. With their self-referential, self-deprecating lyrical wit, solid musicianship, and sense of grand purpose and being, though, it would seem that Fall Out Boy is the first post-modern pop-punk-emo-rock-whatthefuckever band that can do it, do it well, say it right, and know that what they’ve done is as catch and hyperactive as sugar-coated lickable methpops. Do they DESERVE to be this good? This talented? Do they DESERVE to have Jay-Z on their record? Do they DESERVE to hang out with Pete Wentz every fucking day? The answer to the latter is “god, no, no one should have to”, but the rest are all answered with a stunningly resounding YES.

Believe me, I hate writing this as much as you, the intelligent reader, listening to your leak of the new Wilco or your super-deluxe limited edition disc of some backpackhop co-sponsored by Adult McSwimDonalds, hate reading it, but facts are facts: Fall Out Boy have created a fucking GOOD album, start to finish. And it’s unfortunate that it’s taking something like these kids to shake shake shake the scene (excuse me, arms race) into having a good time again-but there it is. We’re in Fall Out Boy’s hands now, and god bless our black hearts and save our souls-with these kids in control, this ain’t a scene, this is genocide.

Fall Out Boy ft Jay-Z: Thriller

The opening song off of Infinity On High, and the first realization that the boys FallOut are up to something-Jay-Z turns in a few verses that crackle with more energy than his own recent phoned-in stuff, and that, in and of itself, should say all it needs to. This ain’t your sister’s Fall Out Boy any longer.

Fall Out Boy: This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race (Kanye West remix)

Further proof of the clout these kids are getting, Fall Out Boy gets handled into a bit of a stomper by he-who-is-the-postmodern-rapper Kanye West himself as he takes cracks on both the boys and himself.

The “This Ain’t A Scene” video-utter brilliance. The lead-in, the disgust at “Dance Dance”, every bit of this makes the video that much better-especially the hip-hop folk watching Stump as he does his thing. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, as it’s the running industry mantra regarding this whole Fall Out Boy 07 thing:

this should not be this good.

Buy Infinity On High