Fall Out Boy, "Infinity On High" (Island Records) - 1 1/2 stars

All right, I’ll admit it. I once had a crush on Fall Out Boy.

I found “Sugar, We’re Going Down” soon after the suburban Chicago band’s 2005 album hit the radio. The song breathed life into the orange-haired, black-nail-polished part of me I’d ignored since my pre-teen years. I’d found my secret summer love.

But God, why are the pretty ones always so damn stupid?

“Infinity on High” lacks the cheek that helped the band distinguish itself from its pop peers on 2005’s “From Under the Cork Tree.” The track titles alone show the distinction: instead of “A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More ‘Touch Me,’” listeners of the new album get “The Carpal Tunnel of Love.” Even before you break open the shrink wrap, it feels like Fall Out Boy just isn’t trying.

It’s unfortunate, since the record displays the same high-gloss, meat-and-potatoes instrumentalism of FOB’s other work. Guitarists Ryan Ross and Chad Gilbert still treat the palm mute like a magic trick, and vocalists Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz wield the same saccharine croon. Granted, the disc is stuffed with studio effects; I’d be shocked to learn that the drummer can keep time without a click track or that the vocalists can keep pitch without three producers and Auto-Tune. Yet this is the band’s formula, and they follow it well throughout the record.

In many ways, the group recalls Huey Lewis and The News circa 1983; rockers uncomfortable with innovation, they stick to tried-and-true trends. They trot out the cut-time bridge, the major key resolution to a minor key tune on “The Take Over, the Break’s Over,” the phaser-distorted vocals on “I’m Like A Lawyer with the Way I’m Always Trying to Get You Off.” The variety in the songs depends on how the producer stitches these elements together. Think Newfound Glory, MxPx, Fenix TX, or any of a dozen other 90s pop-punk bands; every element of this disc is old news.

Following a well-worn path to musical success is a pardonable offense; to paraphrase Ben Franklin, originality’s all about concealing your sources. But there’s no guile here, and bragging about their theft merits harsher punishment.

So when “Infinity on High” opens with a sampled Jay-Z dedication (“To the fans that held us down / Til errrbody came areeeownd”), the album already smacks of laziness. This apathy gets worse when the group steals Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” for the ingeniously titled “Hum Hallelujah,” or lifts the choral melody from the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” for the track “You’re Crashing, but You’re No Wave.” It’s the rough equivalent of giving your partner a used greeting card for your anniversary, then asking, “Aren’t you going to thank me?”

I have no qualms with emo as a sub-genre of rock, nor with the premise of pouring your pre-teen heart out onto a page or into a microphone. As for listeners, if you can get your jollies from three minutes of nostalgic whining even after exiting your teen years, embrace it. But if “Infinity” is any indication, Fall Out Boy couldn’t care less about either the nostalgia or their listeners. I’ve never had a crush treat me so poorly.

—Reviewer Nicholas K. Tabor can be reached at ntabor@fas.harvard.edu.