Artist: Patrick Stump
Album: Truant Wave EP
Genre: Soul Punk
Label: Unsigned

Much seems to have been made of the fact that this album arrived unheralded with barely any promo or press, and I’m very tempted to say that’s because it’s really painfully awful. Patrick Stump, he of Fall Out Boy fame, has popped up seemingly out of nowhere with an EP of slickly put together, if slightly baffling, songs that put quite some distance between him and the on-hiatus pop rock crew. The difference between this and what has gone before is nothing short of striking. Truant Wave is an album of wannabe R’n’B, groove-orientated numbers powered along by a heady undercurrent of ambient and electronic instruments. It’s a bizarre work, even if you happen to be the only person out there who’s never heard Fall Out Boy, and I’m not entirely sure it works. One must applaud Stump for being so bold and adventurous in his solo musical pursuits – if he wanted to be judged on his own merits, he’s succeeded ably – it’s just a pity I can’t think of nicer things to say about them.

While Stump’s voice is usually the thing I adore most about his work, it’s raw, natural heart sounds dreadful here. It’s horrifically at odds with the musical melée going on behind him, and as a result most of the EP sounds like a collection of dodgy remixes. It’s so bad it’s difficult to sort the bad from the ugly in order to analyse it properly. “Porcelain,” the first track on the EP, perplexes at first but emerges with some standing after the rest of the album plays out. As more of a straight-up r’n’b cum dancehall effort, it’s not bad. It has a set structure, the groove and percussion manage to complement each other quite well, and Stump’s vaguely distorted voice serenades the mixture neatly enough. The problem, as with elsewhere, is that it’s disinteresting and entirely forgettable. Aside from some brief toe-tapping it’ll peter out as fast as it faded in.

“Spotlight (Oh Nostalgia)” is a commendable effort (emphasis here on ‘effort’). It opens interestingly on a repeated drum note and heartfelt vocals. It’s an upbeat affair, with cheerful and encouraging lyrics, and a soaring group refrain during the chorus. Unfortunately however, it feels a little detached – the music toils away underneath and Stump’s vocals seem disembodied. It’s not quite as engaging as it should be, reminding me somehow of broken toys gone out of tune. Cute Girls is a complete oddity. Structurally, it’s incoherent and deranged, sounding like a fairground theme mixed with a pining soul record. Perhaps the song is intended as some sort of experiment, with its asymmetrical beats running counter clockwise to the vocal line, but it just doesn’t work. It’s an augmented mess.

“Love, Selfish Love” is a little more restrained. But for that again, it’s dull. It takes a template sparkling guitar thrill and uses it to build a layered rhythm ‘n’ blues track, but in so doing jettisons all spark and creativity. It has potential in parts – the percussion elements are interesting and catchy, but it feels painfully out of sync with the rest of the song and once again, Stump’s poptastic tones do little to bridge the gap.

By the time “As Long As I Know I’m Getting Paid” kicks in, you should have safely blanked out. Maybe I’m overstating things here, but it just sounds dire. It’s bland, tasteless, with no real conviction. Stump has stated that he wrote from a fictional character’s point of view, and perhaps this is the problem – stripped of FOB’s cutting, yet deeply personal, lyrics, he sounds out of sorts. It’s not even a matter of getting used to an artist taking on something completely different. It just sounds bad. This has all the formulaic banter of a charted pop song but uses it to trundle into elevator music territory. “Big Hype” opens with grand intentions – there are synth undercurrents and lots of yodelling about lessons learnt and self-reflection. There’s an almost cautionary high-pitched whistle somewhere amidst the layers of distortion, a grinding rhythm, and oceans of backing vocals, but it peters out as innocuously as the preceding track. There’s the sense Stump wanted to say something avowed and important, but I’m too blinded by the contrived and uninspired accompaniments to notice.

At risk of going overboard, I can simply say that I didn’t like this EP. Not at all. It is, obviously, very different to the type of music one immediately associates with Stump and while new adventures aren’t something to lambast him for, the painful, trite mess he’s ended up with is. He’s way out of his comfort zone, and it shows. Given time, he might be able to take what promise flashes through and fashion something more memorable out of it. In the meantime however, it’s off and be gone with Truant Wave.

Score: 3/10
Review written by: Grace Duffy

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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