Given how they've always harbored inclinations to try any fad that passes across their radar, perhaps it was inevitable that
Fall Out Boy would dive headfirst into EDM. What was not inevitable was the fallout
FOB would sustain in this eminently logical move. "Young and Menace," the clanking and garish single built around an extended allusion to
Britney Spears' "Oops...I Did It Again," killed whatever momentum
FOB built up with "Uma Thurman," sending the group back into the studio to rejigger the album that would become known as
M A N I A. Stung by the negative reaction to "Young and Menace" -- it missed all the Billboard rock charts --
Fall Out Boy scaled back their electronic aspirations but didn't quite abandon them entirely when it came to finalizing the ten tracks featured on their seventh studio album. "Young and Menace" not only still exists, it opens up the album's digital edition and the group occasionally returns to its cavernous clang, funneling it into the frenzied stomp of "Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea," having it power "The Last of the Real Ones," and letting it add echoing texture to the closing ballad, "Bishops Knife Trick." Instead of making
Fall Out Boy seem fresh, these electronic inflections wind up hinting at the group's age, as this frenetic music never seems to come as easily as the familiar amped-up blue-eyed soul and heady punk-pop. That transparent sense of labor does indeed make
M A N I A seem manic, with
Fall Out Boy not so much chasing trends as demonstrating that they know something is happening, they just don't know what it is. All this feverish digital desperation makes the already clamorous
M A N I A feel positively cacophonic: it may only be 39 minutes but it's one long ride. [
M A N I A was also released in a vinyl LP edition.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine