The men of the band, Fall Out Boy, have definitely grown since their days of eyeliner, straightened hair, and song titles too long for the screen of your iPod, but that hasn’t affected the quality of the music they produce.  American Beauty/ American Psycho, Fall Out Boy’s second album after coming off of a four-year hiatus, or break, was released January 16. The album has received mixed reviews, confusing many fans because it is so far removed from the rock image the band has created in previous albums. I personally would follow Fall Out Boy off the edge of a cliff, but I question some of the decisions they made for this album.

With this album, Fall Out Boy has done something pretty risky. They have done some sampling on many of the songs. For example, in the song, “Uma Thurman,” they sample the theme from the 1960’s television show, The Munsters.

Sampling, the practice of taking pieces of other songs to use in yours is almost never done by rock/alternative bands, usually for fear of losing their credibility in the scene. Fall Out Boy has only done this once before in their song, “Hum Hallelujah,” from their second album Infinity On High.  In the eyes of some fans, this caused Fall Out Boy to shed their ‘rock cred’ and become closer to the pop-punk genre.

Overall, the sound of the new album is clean, despite singer Patrick Stump using less control on his voice than in previous albums. This shift in Stump’s use of his voice is also seen on his solo album, Soul Punk, released during Fall Out Boy’s hiatus. Honestly, I think that Stump has the voice of an angel and whatever he sings sounds amazing. Though, the loss of control and layering of the vocals combined can cause listeners to not be able to understand what is being sung at times.

The lyrics are a big shift from what fans are used to. Sure, they’re still as meaningful and beautiful as ever, but they lack the quality of making me want to get the words inked on my body forever, like the majority of Fall Out Boy’s other work does. They also seem–in  some songs–manufactured.

The songs clustered in the middle of the album leave even the most open-minded fans craving one of Joe Trohman’s signature guitar solos. I, the dedicated fan, listened and listened trying to find a taste of his signature style, but have found nothing. The lack of discernable guitar in some songs is disheartening to me, but I love the album all the same.

The album contains two hit singles, “Centuries” and “Immortals,” both of which include modern beats that have “mass appeal” and choral lyrics that are easy enough for those listening from a car radio to understand. This causes some harsh critics to claim that Fall Out Boy are ‘sellouts.’ These people probably said the same thing just before the hiatus, when the band was on MTV . I think that the term “sellout” is frustrating, and as long as the music is good, who cares how popular the band is?

None of this hinders my love for the album. No doubt, this will lead to a new wave of Fall Out Boy listeners who may be surprised by American Beauty/ American Psycho’s alternative sound and clever lyrics.

Conversely, longtime fans may be disappointed by the new direction Fall Out Boy is taking. Short titles, repetitive choruses, mainstream appeal, and sampling are quite the opposite of early Fall Out Boy’s “angsty” punk rock image on their freshman and sophomore albums.

That said, each Fall Out Boy album has progressed and outreached its predecessors, and Fall Out Boy’s first post-hiatus album Save Rock and Roll gave fans time to adjust.

Although American Beauty/ American Psycho is the type of album that grows on a person, it takes time for the significance of each song to set in, and despite the overly ambitious style, the content of the album definitely makes it worth a listen.