My Chemical Romance – MCR to their friends and dedicated followers.
MCR are Newark's (New Jersey) biggest rock export and are now into their third studio album in five years. Its called ‘The Black Parade’. A homage to The Doors ‘The Soft Parade’ perhaps? With their eclectic influences, the band may well have drawn upon Jim Morrison’s heritage to give structure and identity to their album which has now sold over 1.3 million copies worldwide.
A five-piece band, emerging from the New York punk scene, comprising two brothers, Gerald and Mikey Way (on vocals and bass respectively), Frank Iero and Ray Toro on guitars, and Bob Bryar on drums. They got the name from an Irvine Welsh novel.
The Black Parade follows two successful albums (‘I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love ‘ in 2002 and ‘Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge’ two years later) and features guest vocal appearances by Liza Minelli and Frank Iero and Gerard and Mikey Way’s parents.
The Album
The album takes us back to the good/bad old days of the concept album, Thankfully it doesn’t have the gross excesses of some of the 1970's more ridiculous attempts at grand rock opera. What is does have is a story-line focused on a character called ‘The Patient’. Oh, and he’s dead. Ziggy Stardust meets the Undertakers. What does this unlikely combination produce?
Three tracks that you can listen to yourself are available on the bands website .
‘Teenagers’ offers the listener a melodic and openly humorous rock song about the angst of that creation of the post-war generation, the teenager, and his relationship with the equal and opposite force that is the adult. Perhaps a few allusions to some of the Kinks’ quirkier ‘English’ periods can be read into this delightful song.
‘Famous Last Words’ sees Abba meeting Black Sabbath, and on the road to the recording studio the resulting sound bumps into any number of 1980s rockers sporting flowing locks ready to be tossed. Eventually, a touch of the Police creeps in to provide a less convincing number than either ‘Teenagers’ or the album’s near-title song.
‘Welcome to the Black Parade’ offers a softer sound making a genuflection in the direction of Sgt Pepper, whilst referencing Queen, before launching into a punk-influenced middle section that really does ‘carry on’ and on, before returning to Freddie Mercury-land.
What Now?
Concept albums can be fun (see Meatloaf’s completely tongue-in-cheek ‘Bat Out of Hell’ or the Hawkwind crew’s ‘Captain Lockhead and the Starfighters’) or they can be genuinely hellish (think about almost anything involving Yes or Rick Wakeman). MCR have avoided the worst excesses of 70's pomp rock and produced something that’s generally listenable. For their own sakes, let’s hope they don’t get carried away with success and be tempted to keep coming back with the types of over-the-top themed albums that eventually saw off stadium pomp-rock and shuffled in the punk era. On the other hand, maybe that would be fun as well.
