3.5 out of 5 stars

It has been a long wait for Fall Out Boy fans. Five years have passed since the group released their moderately successful studio album, Folie à Deux, and embarked on a self-imposed hiatus.

During the five-year period, bassist Pete Wentz crafted electronic music with Black Cards, singer Patrick Stump put out a solo album, Soul Punk, and guitarist Joe Trohman and drummer Andy Hurley played in a heavy metal band, The Damned Things.

During the hiatus, the band released a greatest hits album featuring two new songs, “Alpha Dog,” and “From Now On We Are Enemies.” These singles, laden with overdriven guitars and fast-paced drums, promised a modern punk rock future for the band.

Back from their hiatus and with a new album, Fall Out Boy does not make good on that promise. Instead, Save Rock and Roll borders more on the “pop” side of pop punk, featuring synthesizers, rap verses and uncharacteristically uninventive lyrics in some cases.

Before releasing the album, Wentz explained rock n’ roll finds its origins in musicians disregarding conventions and playing the music they wanted to play, warning fans that the album would be very different.

Stump, in explaining the album, remarked that when everyone else in the room is shouting, the most “punk rock”thing to do is whisper.

However, with rock these days looking more like the radio-friendly Vampire Weekend, fun. and Passion Pit (all fine bands), this album isn’t so much a whisper as it is just another shout.

The first single and second track on the album, “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light ‘Em Up),”a revived and rewritten song from the band’s demo days, indicated the possibility of a new, but not completely foreign sound. “Light ‘Em Up” works as a single in the same way “I Don’t Care”worked in 2008.

After about two months, Fall Out Boy released another single, which would serve as the first track on the album. “The Phoenix” is reminiscent of “Alpha Dog” in its intense, fast-paced nature.

Sadly, the opening track is less than indicative of the album. The third song, “Alone Together,” marks a decline in the lyricism for which the band is so renowned. Cliché and repetitive, the gist of the song is in the lyrics, “Let’s be alone together/We can stay young forever.” Give me a break.

Unfortunately, other songs matched the third track’s lack of remarkability. For instance, “The Mighty Fall” serves only as a shell song to feature rapper Big Sean. “Where Did the Party Go,” both in its lyrics and dancey instrumental structure, sounds like it belongs more on Soul Punk than a Fall Out Boy album.

Easily one of the best songs on the album is “Just One Yesterday,” which features the upcoming singer-songwriter, Foxes. Stump and Foxes blend terrifically as they sing about a budding, but empty romance bound to fail.

The second best song on the album is “Young Volcanoes.” While it does border on the same clichés as “Alone Together,” the song’s emphasis on the verses rather than the chorus makes up for this negative. The song invokes a great deal of imagery and metaphor to create a sense of inspiration and positivity, a message not uncommon in past albums.

Though most of the album lacks any actual rock and roll, two tracks, “Death Valley” and “Rat-a-Tat,” provide a new, but familiar punk rock vibe.

The former includes a semi-dubstep break, which is expected given Wentz’s time with Black Cards and feels natural in the song.

“Rat-a-Tat” prominently features Courtney Love, an unexpected cameo that gives the song a somewhat edgy feel while maintaining a preoccupation with becoming irrelevant.

The final song, “Save Rock and Roll,” is the standout best song on the album. I have yet to listen to it without getting chills at some point. Fall Out Boy teams up with Elton John to deliver a rock ballad heavily reminiscent of past hits, such as its reference to “Sugar We’re Going Down” and repeated sampling of a line from “Chicago Is So Two Years Ago.”

The rock ballad encompasses the main message the band seems to want to share (“In a world full of the word ‘yes’/I’m here to scream ‘no’”).

If Fall Out Boy had written and composed every song to the quality of “Save Rock and Roll,” the album would have been their best yet and perhaps the best punk rock album of the last decade.

Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. The few good songs on the album hardly make up for the low quality of the others.

Save Rock and Roll deserves a listen, but diehards will almost certainly set aside their pre-ordered copies and instead stick to listening to From Under the Cork Tree for nostalgia’s sake.