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''From Under the Cork Tree'' is the third studio album by American rock band Fall Out Boy. The album, released on May 3, 2005, was Fall Out Boy's first release through Island Records. - Wikipedia

Disregard the pretense of pop-punk for a minute. We're past such semantics by now, peering through the frosted window of a Hot Topic on the eve of the post-Warped Tour era--a place where hooks are auto-tuned and encouraged, where hardcore is a form of porn and metal, not a call for change and lit gas cans. How we got here is hardly news: MTV, malls, and anarchistic festivals sponsored by the Marines. How will the cycle of Top 40 punk continue past the disbandment of Blink-182? That is the cryptic question.

The kids clamoring for streamlined hooks and chords clearly need a leader to usher in a new age of mass-marketed dissension. And for the time being, Fall Out Boy's debut major label outing will do. Sure, "Dance, Dance" comes close enough to the Cure song about staying asleep today for Robert Smith to potentially fund his next car crash of creativity with a copyright infringement suit. Still, there's nothing wrong with new wave subtleties smearing mascara over an otherwise spit-shined sound. Same goes for the gang chorus groveling of New Found Glory and William Beckett from the Academy Is... on a couple cuts; they feign aggression like a testosterone injection, but that's certainly better than an entire album of heavy-on-the-cheese comfort food for old Fall Out Boy fans.

Not too long ago, Fall Out Boy appeared on the cover of Alternative Press and claimed they would rather shoot pop-punk in the head than save it. Riggggggght. Bassist/lyricist Pete Wentz continues this conscious bid for street cred here with sheets of self deprecating humor and stiff double entendres. It's a welcome distraction from the adolescent drivel we've come to expect from the genre, but face it: this is another pop-punk album-and a good one, for what it's worth. Enjoy the expanding bank account while it lasts, boys.