Fall Out Boy: From Under the Cork Tree

Herald rating: ***

These lads have been forging a steady path in New Zealand. They play a type of melodic, yet fun and fiery punk rock music we love.

Their increasing popularity has no doubt been helped along by Green Day's renaissance thanks to the more adventurous American Idiot album, which has meant punk-pop is more interesting to an older generation.

While there are no punk epics here, Fall Out Boy's difference is that they go hard and don't let up, and they're still a bit young and stupid and still having fun. Not a dumb stupid, but when you get songs called I Slept With Someone In Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me, then their juvenile tendencies are as visible as a pimple. That song, though, is just one of the energetic and catchy belters (others include 7 Minutes In Heaven and Of All The Gin Joints In the World) with chunky, back-bending riffs, and pummelling rhythms, that prove FOB like it heavy. But the melodic highs, subtle harmonies, and the occasional phlegm-rattling yells and all-in chorus chants, keep it both passionate and palatable.

Label: Island