This year marks the 20-year anniversary of Fall Out Boy’s debut studio album (2003’s Take This to Your Grave) and five years since they last put out a record (2018’s Mania). The rock band has mastered their home genre and pop crossover smashes alike, but with their latest record, So Much (for) Stardust, the masterminds behind “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down” achieve a legitimate return to form. Featuring Pete Wentz’s first spoken word interlude since 2008 (“20 Dollar Nose Bleed” from Folie à Deux), a reunion with Feuled by Ramen, and the return of key collaborator Neal Avron, So Much (for) Stardust takes the foundational elements of Fall Out Boy’s greatness and douses them in a pool of movie references and disco and soul music influences for the band’s best album in nearly a decade.

Led by “Love From the Other Side,” one of the best songs of the year, Fall Out Boy immediately plants So Much (for) Stardust squarely in the awesome drama of psychological thrillers and film noir alike. Twinkling piano and elegant strings devolve into brash guitars and drums before cradling Patrick Stump’s trademark inimitable vocals. After 20 years of testing the limits of his range, Patrick still finds new textures and pockets of his voice to drive the band’s songs forward and highlight the idiosyncracies of their lyrics. His nuanced vocal performance on “So Good Right Now” simultaneously expresses the buoyant nature of the instrumental arrangement and the morbid energy of lyrics like “I cut myself down, cut myself down / To whatever you need me.” On the album’s closing track, which is also its title track, Patrick’s voice cuts through what is, perhaps, the most bombastic arrangement on the album; booming drums, dizzying piano, and lyrical callbacks to “Love From the Other Side” close the album out in fine fashion.

As irresistible and as pertinent as Patrick’s voice is, he isn’t the only person to get on the mic. In addition to Pete Wentz, Academy Award-nominated actor and screenwriter Ethan Hawke appears on “The Pink Seashell” by way of a sample of one of his monologues from the 1994 rom-com Reality Bites. An ode to the little things in life, the monologue grounds the intergalactic aspirations of Stardust in reality while also cementing a cinematic throughline. On “Heartbreak Feels So Good,” Patrick croons lyrics that nod to Jordan Peele’s Nope, and album standout “Heaven, Iowa" presents a new evolved Fall Out Boy that opts for wide open choruses and sparse production to anchor lyrical allusions to A Star Is Born, Mulholland Drive, and Moonlight Sonata. By sourcing so much of the album’s lyrical heft from cinema, the record’s “stardust” becomes its obsession with Hollywood as a means of escapism from the hellish film that the pandemic has turned real life into.

For all of its highs, So Much (for) Stardust also has its fair share of duds. “Flu Game” is well-meaning, but trite (the basketball metaphor doesn’t land as well as the film ones), and “The Kitsungi Kid” is utterly forgettable (you can tell it was almost going to be left off the album). Nonetheless, moments like “What A Time To Be Alive,” a warm embrace of chaos that uses a jovial brass section to pay tribute to Earth, Wind & Fire, hold the album together. So Much (for) Stardust is an imperfect record, but it is undoubtedly an album that infuses a grown-up Fall Out Boy with the rawness of their early years. The introspection is heavier, but the overall instrumentation and production are more reminiscent of From Under the Cork Tree than the overly glossy sheen of MANIA. Between Fall Out Boy and Paramore, the iconic pop-rock bands of the mid-2000s are refusing to be swallowed by a comparatively tepid 2020s revival of the genre — and we should all be very thankful.

Key Tracks: “Love From The Other Side” | “What A Time to Be Alive” | “Heaven, Iowa” | “I Am My Own Muse”

Score: 76