"Nobody wants to hear you sing about tragedy!" blares Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump amid the flailing theatrics of "Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes," the opening cut on the band's new "Folie a Deux."
And with that, the mood of the release is established. Keep listening if you like your angst stood on its head in histrionic fashion and you don't mind abundant tongue-in-cheek self-awareness. Keep moving if you prefer your angst delivered with brooding self-importance.
If Fall Out Boy lyricist and bass player Pete Wentz were more serious with lines like, "I will never believe in anything again" -- which comes on the new track "(Coffee's for Closers)" -- he'd have zilch credibility, what with the wild success of his Chicago-born group, his marriage to Ashlee Simpson and the birth of their son, Bronx Mowgli. Instead, Wentz, Stump, guitarist Joe Trohman and drummer Andy Hurley blaze through outlandish arrangements and assertions with electric fervor, group shout-alongs and fidgety overstimulation.
Whatever elements of punk and emo and other forms of alternative rock filter through the sound is incidental to the band's demonstrative narcissism and wry camp. Big beats and bigger riffs power the propulsive first single, "I Don't Care" (keyed to the line, "I don't care what you think, as long as it's about me"), but even the piano-backed opening of "What a Catch, Donnie" -- featuring the lyric, "I've got troubled thoughts and the self-esteem to match" -- is over the top.
Sure, Fall Out Boy's showmanship trumps substance and the group sometimes stumbles into clunky contrivances, but "Folie a Deux" is a big rock 'n' roll carnival for those who like big rock 'n' roll carnivals.
As the title of her new "A Different Me" suggests, Keyshia Cole hints at presenting a whole new version of herself, and on the grinding opener she coyly offers, "I would like to introduce the sexy side of me."
She wasn't sexy before?
Truth is, Cole plays it safe on "A Different Me," and it's hard to blame her. Cole, who stars in her own reality show on BET, has gone platinum with her first two releases and scored a string of hits, including a "Heaven Sent" that just nabbed Grammy nominations for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Song.
She's certainly not going to mess with success by becoming a whole new person.
So "A Different Me" is more of a repurposed Cole, and it's so radio-friendly that a dozen cuts could easily be hits.
Good potential hits and formulaic potential hits, Cole's got plenty of both.
On the upside, the singer is the soft-but-sturdy soul diva on the retro-techno "Please Don't Stop," she makes a sensual grandstand with guest Nas on the blissful "Oh-Oh, Yeah-Yea" and she dovetails with the hypnotic flow of the languid "Thought You Should Know."
Plus Cole's duet with the late Tupac Shakur -- first single "Playa Cardz Right" -- overcomes the weirdness of her seducing a dead man and ultimately triumphs as her cooing vulnerability contrasts with his stressed-out resonance.
Unfortunately, "A Different Me" is loaded with predictable modern R&B fare, hokey and overwrought relationship songs that might sink their claws into listeners long enough to score hit success.
That is, until her fans wise up to the blatant manipulation. Then Cole really will have to reinvent herself.
San Francisco's Momu creates a diversion before it settles into a consistent, representative groove on "Momentum," and that will be a pleasant surprise for those committed to hearing out the release.
Those unfamiliar with the progressive-breaks-oriented electronic duo of JD Moyer (Jondi from Jondi & Spesh) and Mark Musselman may think Momu is another name for Alysoun Quinby, a sometime-Momu vocalist adorning the cover of "Momentum" and singing lead on the first track, "Window."
Fortunately, that opening "Window" isn't reflective of what's to come: The track is equivalent to a rambling friend telling a story, complete with complicated subplots, in such a circuitous fashion that she never gets to a point. Likewise, Quinby and "Window" never get on track.
In keeping with its title, however, "Momentum" eventually gets to grinding.
Robotic vocals and some gentle funk are key to second track "Truckin'," followed by the hissing and exhaling rhythms and fluttering bass vibrations of "Goin' Off Tonight." The title song, No. 4 in the tracking, is an energetic, though not overly decorated, cosmic journey, an instrumental well-suited to its name.
From there, Momu seems to hit the reset button and backtracks to its meandering ways on "Just Listen" before eventually working up the elastic vibes, frenetic beats and throbbing bass that culminate in the closing cuts "You Say Stuff" (a darker complement to the title track) and the broadly playful finale, "X500."
Momu may employ a commercially unsound strategy of starting slow and finishing strong, but from a listener's standpoint, it's more satisfying to hear a big finish than it is to hear a release fizzle out.
-- Chuck Campbell, Scripps Howard News Service
First Published: December 25, 2008, 5:00 a.m.
