A Hero Under Mistletoe

Fall Out Boy “20 Dollar Nose Bleed”

Fall Out Boy are about as weird as a band can possibly get while still, somehow, sounding more or less normal. Despite, and in some ways because of, their incredible success, they’ve become oddball pop maximalists hell-bent on appropriating the often embarrassing trappings of the 80s/90s blockbuster aesthetic at a time when the blockbuster album is dead or dying. The band is still technically “emo,” at least in the sense that they pin smirky-clever lyrics to music that mostly conforms to some variation on pop-punk, but at this point, Patrick Stump is singing virtually everything with an R&B affectation, songs are packed with unnecessary, ostentatious cameos (Elvis Costello!), and at least half of their new record is a mutant strain of some other genre. I really appreciate what Fall Out Boy are going for, but I wish that I enjoyed more of the songs. Though the group is capable of knocking out some gems, too many of the songs fall flat with huge ambitions and slight, unremarkable melodies. “20 Dollar Nose Bleed” is one of the numbers that works, in part because its fanfare and dynamics flatter Stump’s voice, but mostly because its hooks are pleasurable enough to make Pete Wentz’s vainly verbose lyrics seem relatively natural. (Well, except for the sorta rappy bit at the very end, that’s not so hot.)

Buy it from Amazon.

Archers of Loaf “Assassination On X-Mas Eve”

Christmas music is normally concerned with things that are appropriate to the season, but the Archers of Loaf’s song opts for the opposite, and presents a scenario in which an act of violence ruins Christmas for everyone. It’s hard to tell what’s the actual tragedy in the song — the murder, the fact that the perpetrator is running free, or that all these hapless people are forced to work on a miserable case through the holidays. There’s no escape to ritualized artifice, just blood and paperwork.

Buy it from Alias Records.