My Chemical Romance – The Black Parade

Concept albums are consistently becoming more and more prominent in the punk scene. The Format, Green Day, The Killers are just some of the bands who have recently released elaborately theme albums.My Chemical Romance are the latest to jump onto that band wagon with their new album, The Black Parade. And while the interesting story of cancer, death and the afterlife can be hard to follow at times,The Black Parade definitely stands out by itself.

Many people will knock it off simply because it’s My Chemical Romance, but the truth is that The Black Parade is leaps and bounds ahead of Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge. It is the band’s rock opera and album that will be held in high regard from fans and critics alike for sometime. It is adventurous and daring as the band leaves their signature emo sound behind going for the more articulated rock side of things. The use of Rob Cavallo at the knobs also pushed the album forward, creating easy comparisons to American Idiot – not musically but structurally. The orchestration and arrangements are ambitious as they step out of their niche and cross over the boundary to rock.

Gerard Way’s vocals are still grating, but much more refined and in tune with the music than ever before. The entire album is theatrical, from the teenage rebellion anthem, Teenagers, to the Russian gypsies songMama (fans of Gogol Bordello will definitely like this track, and the appearance of Liza Minelli is quite surprising too) and the ballad Welcome To The Black Parade. It all rounds off with the climatic and perfect album closure – Famous Last Words.

The album is far from your simple three chord ditty, and many punk elitists will hate that. Instead, The Black Parade is an ambitious, over the top, rock album carefully structured in order to appeal to the masses and sell millions while keeping the biggest critics occupied too. The only real downside to the album is the flow of it feels very choppy at times. While The End is a great introduction to the album, it needs to meld into Dead! more than the abrupt ending it currently has; and occasionally the slow, piano based ballads like Cancer slow the momentum too much. It works at times, like with Disenchanted after the aforementioned Teenagers; but other times the album seems to lack a much needed flow.

Other than that though, a great album, one that will be in many year end lists, and one that will give My Chemical Romance a hell out of a lot to live up to for their next release.