Don’t press play on “Save Rock and Roll” and expect the short, fast and loud confessionals of “Take This to Your Grave.” Don’t look for a nostalgia blast from middle school dances when “Dance, Dance” and “Sugar We’re Going Down” ruled airplay charts.

You won’t find it here.

Fall Out Boy’s resident poet, bassist Pete Wentz, proved prophetic when he penned “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race” back in 2007. Mainstream acts upped their arsenals with dubstep wobbles, drum machines and vocals slathered in electronics. And five years after what felt like the band’s swan song, Fall Out Boy is back in the race.

“Save Rock and Roll” keeps its tongue firmly in cheek when it comes to genre battle lines. The record is big, the record is glossy and the record is — to hardcore fanboy chagrin — most definitely a pop album. Dance floor thumpers like “The Mighty Fall” and Adele-channeling “Just One Yesterday” would be woefully out of place side by side with, say, “Dead On Arrival” in Fall Out Boy’s discography.

The album opens with a swirling whirlwind of strings and Patrick Stump’s snarl of “Put on your war paint.” The song’s foot-stomping battle cry, “I’m going to change you like a remix / Then I’ll raise you like a phoenix,” comes straight from Wentz’s trying-too-hard-to-be-clever songbook, but it’s hard not to shout along when Stump launches into its massive chorus.

Fall Out Boy’s rise from the ashes isn’t just a feel-good, rock-and-roll romp. Lead single “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark” is a bitter cut, featuring some venom-laced staccato vocals from Stump and one of the album’s signature moments: the sound of someone striking a match once Stump demands listeners to “burn everything you love / then burn the ashes.”

Those bitter feelings resurface on “Rat a Tat,” a fists-in-the-air anthem featuring a ranting Courtney Love rambling through an incoherent diatribe. Fall Out Boy historically picks and chooses its guest spots well — see: Jay-Z on “Thriller” or Elvis Costello on “What a Catch, Donnie” — but two of the bigger names the band calls on in “Save Rock and Roll” feel off. Love’s monologue doesn’t add a thing to “Rat a Tat.”

While we’re at it, Big Sean’s bumbling verse on “The Mighty Fall” — Yes, he does the “Oh God” thing and yes, he steals a punch line from Simple Plan — is as ass-tastic as his spot on Kanye West’s “Clique.” But Butch Walker’s deft producing hand rights the ship with some driving synthesizers.

Guest vocals aside, “Save Rock and Roll” is crammed to capacity with summer jams. “Alone Together” might be the catchiest song in Fall Out Boy’s catalog, and — just a tip — wear out mostly acoustic toe-tapper “Young Volcanoes” before radio stations get their hands on it. Neither song matches the balls-to-the-wall intensity of “The Phoenix” or “My Songs,” but both bring enough energy to make fans missing Fall Out Boy’s pop-punk phase crack a smile.

Some of the best moments on “Save Rock and Roll” are the album’s mid-tempo stunners. There’s disco-tinged “Where Did the Party Go,” bolstered by a supercharged bass line and throwback ‘80s groove, and “Just One Yesterday,” which precariously leans toward a “Rolling In The Deep” rip-off for a few bars before Stump duets with Louisa Rose Allen of Foxes on a flourishing chorus.

But even if you’re only half-serious about the title, an album named “Save Rock and Roll” warrants a kick-ass closer, and Fall Out Boy went for broke.

The sweeping title track features a verse from Sir Elton-freaking-John — who also lends his talent behind a grand piano — callbacks to fan favorites “Sugar We’re Going Down” and “Chicago Is So Two Years Ago,” and a theatrical arrangement. It builds slowly, but patient listeners get rewarded with a firecracker of a finale.

“Save Rock and Roll,” in all its glossy pomp and spectacle, is Fall Out Boy in 2013, and the band may never have sounded better.

So, if you’re still looking for four-chord breakup songs, take Stump’s growling advice on the closer: “F*ck you, you can go cry me an ocean.”

Published on April 15, 2013 at 10:03 pm

Contact Erik: [email protected] | @therealvandyman