The unofficial kings of emo have ditched their traditional indie tragedy angst for fun, tongue in cheek pop-rock. Sure, there’s melodramatic lyrics ("I'm coming apart at the seams" played over a funeral organ), but behind the melodrama, there is a smirk. In the galloping "Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes," frontman Patrick Vaughn Stump sings about nervous breakdowns and detox stints before delivering a jokey self-critique: "Nobody wants to hear you sing about tragedy".

The title of "The (Shipped) Gold Standard" is an in-joke about record sales, and the chorus rises to winking couplet: "You can only blame your problems on the world for so long/Before it all becomes the same old song." In Fall Out Boy's world, tongue-in-cheek always trumps heart-on-sleeve.

Musical guest-list appearances boast names that only an A-list band could corral, from emo homeboys (Gym Class Heroes' Travis McCoy) to rappers (Lil Wayne, Pharrell) to eminences (Elvis Costello, Debbie Harry). Even when I didn’t fall in love with a particular song, I could still hear it in my head later and isn’t pop music is supposed to be catchy? Finally, the dynamics and theatricality of the album made it a fun listen—Fall Out Boy loves their breakdowns, crescendos, out-of-left-field bridges and all that stuff. At times, the songs sound like they could be pulled from a really uptempo musical. The almost-comic diversity of the album is demonstrated by the utter lack of similarity between my top three picks: ‘America’s Suitehearts’, ‘I Don’t Care’, and a cover of Jacko’s ‘Beat it’.

My inner adolescent was impressed. Let’s hear it for America’s Fall Out Boy!