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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
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Folie A Deux
by Fall Out Boy
The latest album for the emo rock band was produced by Neal Avron.
| LABEL: |
Island |
| RELEASE DATE: |
16 December 2008 |
| DISCS: |
1 disc |
| GENRE(S): |
Rock, Alternative, Pop |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Folie follows the precedent of 2007's "Infinity On High," which expanded Fall Out Boy's sonic palette (synthesizers, sequenced drums, strings, etc.). This one just goes further, with more layers and cameos from Elvis Costello, Debbie Harry, Lil Wayne, and others.
80
Hartford Courant
This is a more sophisticated record that manages to keep intact the brash sensibility that helped attract all those fans in the first place.
80
Boston Globe
It's simply another sturdy album that plays up what Fall Out Boy does best: rocking the arena with barely a second to catch your breath.
80
All Music Guide
Whether intentional or not, there's a certain glee to FOB's pop absurdity because their cheerfully careless genre-bending has no reverence: fitting all these sounds and jokes into a pop song is all a game and it's one listeners can share, whether they're playing spot-the-allusion or just succumbing to the sugary hooks clustered within one track.
80
Blender
This is the brightest, breeziest, giddiest record Fall Out Boy have ever made.
80
New Musical Express
The band have responded with their most stylistically hatstand-but-indisputably-best songs yet.
80
Observer Music Monthly
And while this all may sound suspiciously over-indulgent, the fact is these self-styled 'soft-core' rockers are fulfilling their own prophesy.
75
Entertainment Weekly
Passionate, splashy, and ambitious, Folie isn't flawless by any stretch, but it's no folly either.
70
Alternative Press
While Folie A Deux at times feels like the band are showing off the contents of their Rolodex, the album's standouts are so good that they will undoubtedly become standards for the band's live shows for years to come.
70
Spin
If the band could bring themselves to record with anything resembling subtlety, they might win over some skeptics. But they also might end up hanging with Lightspeed Champion. I suspect they'll take the trade-off.
70
Rolling Stone
In Fall Out Boy's world, tongue-in-cheek always trumps heart-on-sleeve. That's certainly the case on Folie à Deux, their most exuberantly cheeky release yet.
70
Dot Music
Folie A Deux is entertaining in moderate doses, like its predecessor "Infinity On High", where the band gleefully abandoned any last pretence to edginess.
63
Los Angeles Times
But for all the steps forward, Folie a Deux also seems to contain a microchip for its own destruction.
60
The Guardian
Patrick Stump is an impassioned frontman, and shows what he can do on the ambitious, multi-segment WAMS, but there's only so much creativity he can wring out of this conventional rock.
60
Mojo
Folie A Deux recalls the high-impact pop oof "Private Eyes"-era Hall & Oates, and that's preferable to sounding like Blink 182. [Jan 2008, p.104]
60
Q Magazine
Folie A Deux is mostly a barrelling, hugely confident record that should see Fall Out Boy swiftly elevated into mainstream rock's premier league. [Jan 2009, p.112]
57
cokemachineglow
This is a power-pop album released by the biggest Fall Out Boy-ish band working today, on a major label, but it’s also 50.4 minutes of Fall Out Boy music--an extended, incomprehensible and surprisingly marketable clamor, ambulance siren loud, of contradictory signifiers.
50
Slant Magazine
The album's best moments are those that hum along unassumingly, giving the songs room to be catchy and simple and the hooks room to sneak up on you. These moments, however, are rare and fleeting.
50
PopMatters
Though Folie a Deux is still riddled with problems (ending the disc with the Survivor-esque closer 'West Coast Smoker' makes for a somewhat hurried conclusion), it’s still a musical leap in the right direction for the band, as it adds just enough new elements to keep things interesting while not straying too far from the sound that made them big in the first place.
The average user rating for this album is 8.2 (out of 10) based on 24 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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