M A N I A

Idk, its really hard for me to talk about this album, mainly cause of how much of a complete mess it is at points. I actually kinda liked the electronic sound they went for on some of these tracks, felt kinda interesting to see the mainly pop punk rock band try and dabble with a brand new style with some of these songs. I actually really liked a lot of these songs too, with tracks like “Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea” and “Bishops Knife Trick” going really hard considering what I was expecting from this. Also really liked the writing on “Wilson”, as that song has some legit really interesting lines that kept me engaged with the some for its whole runtime. Apart from that and a few other moments, the rest of the album is pretty much the same level as some of the worst moments on “AB/AP”. “HOLD ME TIGHT OR DONT” is a terrible attempt at some kind of tropical EDM banger with steel drums and whistling that just sounds so off with what FOB normally does. “Church” and “Heavens Gate” are some of the front runners of most overblown overproduced song Ive heard, they both sound awful and tacky as shit. “Sunshine Riptide” sees FOB team up with Burna Boy of all people to completely butcher reggae dancehall. And “Young and Menace” starts off actually kinda decent until it hits you with one of the worst sounding choruses of all time, no fucking joke its so fucking bad I highly recommend just checking out that song at least one time in your life just to witness how awful it gets. But I think the reason why its not any lower than “AB/AP” is probably mainly because while the lows are about the same for both songs, I still really prefer the highs of this album by a really big margin, meanwhile the highs on “AB/AP” were just ok. Idk, I feel like this is a really unpopular opinion, but I would actually be interested to see FOB try and tackle this kind of sound again someday, as I really think there is some real potential in what they were doing here at some points. But for now, this was just a pretty decent passable effort imo, not nearly as bad as “AB/AP” nor as bad as most other people say it is. At least in my opinion, anyway.

Best Tracks: Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea, The Last of the Real Ones, Wilson, Champion, Bishops Knife Trick
Worst Track: Young and Menace