By Christine Saraceno
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As of lately Patrick Stump has had a lot of time on his hands. With the future of his pop-punk band Fall Out Boy (FOB) unknown, he had to find something to do with all his newfound freedom. Unfortunately, the thing he chose to do was make a solo EP, Truant Wave.

It would appear that the FOB lead singer, who has also established himself as a talented producer, simply has too many ideas floating around in his head. With those ideas he didn’t selectively combine certain elements together to make a cohesive sounding album. Rather he mashed all the ideas together like a less fascinating, musical version of Dr. Frankenstein.

On the EP’s lead single, “Cute Girls,” he channels his hero, Michael Jackson, with a smooth 80’s R&B beat which becomes heavily distorted upon the commencing of the vocals with an awkward reverberating synth.

On the song “Big Hype” he displays a heavy, bass backdrop which would’ve been perfect for a more anthemic pop song, but not this one. No, rather Stump’s jazz scatting gives the song an unbalanced, chaotic feeling and makes it hard to follow.

“Porcelain” sounds like a lost 90’s pop track with it’s lazily thrown together lyrics (“I don’t ever want to meet you/cause you’re like porcelain/and I think it would crack/if I found you out a brat/stay perfect/stay perfect”). The whole album’s full of tired aphorisms and cheesy pickup lines that Fall Out Boy’s known for.

When asked about her opinion on Stump’s solo effort, Valencia student Angela Romano said, “I heard ‘Cute Girls’ and ‘Spotlight.’ They sound okay I guess. I heard that the whole thing was just reject songs from Soul Punk (Stump’s unreleased full length album).

A vital task Stump needs to complete is finding his own voice as a solo artist. Truant Wave feels very much like Fall Out Boy tried to make an R&B album and failed miserably. We can o