Beloved audience, the pop-punk band of the century has, yet again, inconspicuously dropped more music, this time in a form of an EP. August 22nd, the official twitter of Fall Out Boy tweeted “Forever a lake effect kid. New EP dropping tonight at midnight ET to celebrate our biggest homecoming yet” playing attributes to ‘homecoming’ being their first stadium gig at Wrigley Field. Lake Effect Kid—as the EP is called—is their sonnet to Chicago, hometown and birthplace to Fall Out Boy, ‘Lake Effect’ being the phenomenon of when snow occurs when a cold air mass moves across a warm lake (that being Lake Michigan in this case.) The EP is titled after the title song, which actually appeared as a demo on their 2008 mixtape CitizensFOB Mixtape: Welcome to the New Administration produced by Clinton Sparks.  

The three songs on the album are listed Lake Effect Kid, City in a Garden, and Super Fade, with the sounds of each song progressively changing. Lake Effect Kid sounds like the old Fall Out Boy sound, which seeing that it’s a final version of a song from 2008, makes sense. The music has the steady drum and guitar beats that taper off during the pre-chorus then comes right back in just as strong in the chorus much like old FOB does. Lyrically, it’s simple and repetitive with little inflection or runs in lead singer Stump’s voice, juxtaposed to their modern music.  

City in a Garden is, in all sense of the phrase, a love letter. With the soft drums and building guitar, this song sounds like it belongs in a coming of age film. Paired with the soft sound in Stump’s voice and sweet lyrics, the repetition of “Take me home/I love you Chicago” this song can make anyone feel the emotion of the city he serenades.  

Lastly, and a personal favorite, Super Fade is juxtaposed to everything previously stated. This piece is the hard new Fall Out Boy they have completely sold when they came back from hiatus with Save Rock and Roll. Synth, electric guitar, and orchestral vibes, this song has an edge and it hurts. “You know the World can get my bones, but Chicago gets my soul” lyrics insinuating that the city is a heaven, it sticks with the theme of paying tribute, but underneath is a harder message. The song goes on to say how he tries to fill a hole inside himself with “trophies and lights” and how this album is reigning him back into the band’s roots.  

Their tour will be upstarted Monday, August 24th and their Wrigley performance will be September both 8th and 9th and will specifically include a pop-up shop and will include, what they call, #theManiaExperience. This ‘experience’ will include twelve spaces to walk through each themed with different albums, such as a purple wave room for M.A.N.I.A, and these spaces will include unreleased music. Let’s ride this purple wave of unprompted music together and anticipate a new album for the future.