Fall Out Boy - Save Rock and Roll

Fall Out Boy have described Save Rock and Roll - an album they say was "recorded in secret from the music industry, critics, and even our fans" - as "the first record in a new chapter of Fall Out Boy".

"An artist's first record sound the way it does because it is often made without expectations," they explain on their official website.

"This is not our first record, but ... we made this music for ourselves and no-one else, at the end of the day."

You can draw your own conclusions about the outcome below, as the full album has been made available to preview via SoundCloud; it's an energetic composition with plenty of positives, even if Fall Out Boy are not normally one of your favourites.



Album opener The Phoenix has actually been available on SoundCloud for a couple of weeks, but at the time of writing, most of the other tracks from Save Rock and Roll had only been uploaded for 13 hours.

The title of this album is actually very apt - it's not soft rock, by any means, but the tracks are complex and carefully layered, with a wealth of vocals, instrumentals and effects combining to deliver an epic soundscape that is truly unique to each song.

As is so often the case - particularly with music at this kind of pace - the individual track lengths are not as long as you might first think, with most hovering around the radio-friendly four-minute mark.

However, there's enough going on at any instant to make those four minutes deliver easily as much of an audio experience as you might get with an entire mainstream pop album, making Save Rock and Roll well worth the cover price.

If this is what happens when Fall Out Boy go into hiding, let's hope we don't hear them mentioned again for another 18 months or so.

Rating: 86%

Pre-order on iTunes via the button below.