On January 16, American rock band Fall Out Boy released their sixth studio album: American Beauty/American Psycho. American Beauty/America Psycho is their second album since their five-year break that ended in 2013.

With the band’s reinvention in 2013 with their album Save Rock and Roll, the changes in their sound have become even more daring and apparent. However, that rebel mentality they’ve had since their 2003 debut is still going strong in American Beauty/American Psycho.

“Centuries”, the lead single for American Beauty/American Psycho, was released on September 8, 2014 as a precursor to the upcoming album. In my opinion, releasing “Centuries” as a preview to this album was a good idea because it really matched the tone to the album: loud anthems with electronic beats that make you want to get up and do something productive like learn how to play the bass guitar or maybe run a marathon.

While  American Beauty/American Psycho follows the same structure as Save Rock and Roll (loud, arena worthy songs that slightly resemble their “Sugar We’re Going Down” days), it has a controversial aspect to it: their use of samples.

The title track, “American Beauty/American Psycho” pulls from Mötley Crüe’s “Too Fast For Love”. “Fourth Of July” takes from Son Lux’s “Lost It To Trying”. Even the hit single “Centuries” samples the melody from “Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega (sang by Lolo in “Centuries”). And then there’s the most random sample in “Uma Thurman”, one of my personal favorites on the album, that samples the theme from TV’s The Munsters.

Considering that Fall Out Boy has rarely ever used sampling before, I thought they did a pretty good job with that unique idea. Even though some people may completely disagree with me, I think it might have made the album a little better than it would have been.  Plus, what other band could pull off using The Munsters theme? This just goes to show that we should stick with the expect the unexpected with Fall Out Boy.

American Beauty/American Psycho opens up with “Irresistible” which is the best song on the album they could have chosen to open with, solely because of the opening trumpets that seem to be announcing the entrance of royalty.

The next song on the album is “American Beauty/American Psycho” which is not my favorite song on the album because of the vast difference between each verse and the chorus. Even though the verses and chorus should be different, I feel like this song just jumps around too much.

The album then continues on with “Centuries” which was released prior to this album, but still fits in well in the album. I think that after “American Beauty/American Psycho”, this song picks the album up off the ground where it was sort of dropped during the second track.

Following “Centuries” is “The Kids Aren’t Alright” and “Uma Thurman”, my two favorite songs on the album, though they are slightly different from the previous ones. “The Kids Aren’t Alright” starts off with the stereotypical whistling that many artists use in their songs, but definitely revives itself with the gradual pick ups leading to the chorus. Out of all the songs on the album, I think that “The Kids Aren’t Alright” sounds more like their previous album. “Uma Thurman” definitely continues on the flow of the album, with its fast beat and interesting composition.

The rest of the album continues with the unique composition and fast beat. However, the one song I believe drops the ball on the second half of the album is “Favorite Record”. I feel like when they were mixing this song, they didn’t know where to go with it so just threw everything they were thinking of into a big mess of music.

Overall, I think that American Beauty/American Psycho is a great album and would definitely recommend it. I rate it 4/5 North Stars.