As the Offspring once said, It’s cool to hate. After their initial EP release and the drip-feed circulation of this, their first full length album on eyeball Records, My Chemical Romance garnered quite a little fan base for themselves. Nevertheless, when you start to gain a buzz and the tag of ‘Next Big Things’, then everyone who couldn’t really care less about you suddenly declares their hate for the very ground you walk on. Still, any band or label that dismisses the power of the internet in selling bands to the masses should take a long, hard look at the likes of MCR, for without this monumental web of wires, they would be nobodies.
Like many, many others before, I first heard MCR on ‘Thee Interweb’. After downloading ‘Vampires Will Never Hurt You’, I was hooked. With it’s brooding intro, schizophrenic chorus’ and disturbing imagery, it narrowly avoids being trite and instead leapfrogs firmly into ‘Holy crap this song is good’ territory. I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t turn the damn thing off for a week or two after downloading it. While a number of people would eagerly proclaim that this song is head and shoulders above the rest of the record, I, for the sake of argument, am going to damn well disagree.
No, that’s not true. I am going to disagree, but not for the sake of argument, simply because most of the rest of this album is just as skull-crackingly brilliant as the ‘…Vampires’. Take the intro and subsequent first ‘proper’ song. I am a sucker for a scene setting intro, and ‘Romance’, with its lightly plucked Spanish style guitar strings and swirling melody, is a wonderful way to introduce you to the record. ‘Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough for the Both Of Us’ then slides into earshot and immediately pops into number two in my ‘Intro’s to songs which I’d like to rip off in order to write my own song if it wouldn’t be so damn horribly obvious’ list. Yet again, it’s brooding, dark and on the right side of crazy, but in so many different ways.
However, while some people may dismiss MCR s a mere one trick pony, they are far from it. While they pull off the homicidal metal-tinged numbers with style and charm, ‘Headfirst For Halos’ is a bouncy gem that truly throws a spanner in the works while ‘Demolition Lovers’ and ‘Early Sunsets Over Monroeville’ display a graceful melodic sensibility that is merely hinted at in the other songs.
Unfortunately, while there isn’t a ‘bad’ song on the album, a couple, ‘Our Lady Of Sorrows’ and ‘This Is The Best Day Ever’ predominantly with ‘Cubicles’ escaping by the skin of it’s teeth, lack the character of ‘…Vampires’ or ‘Honey…’ and tend to wash over the listener instead of forcing them to sit up and take notice. Still, there is little to dissuade the listener from actively enjoying the album and there sure as hell isn’t one of those tracks where you repeatedly skip to the next because it bores the bejeezus out of you, which is always a good thing.
‘I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love’ prays upon every musical guilty pleasure I will confess to. Vivid yet dark imagery, metallic sensibilities coupled with floods of melody, schizophrenic vocals, energy to the extreme and little guitar soloey bits over the top of verses that don’t really bring anything significant to the song yet somehow make it that bit more satisfying. Oh, and ridiculous song titles, although the album title is a step too far. While it might be cool to hate (especially seen as they have now signed to a major subsidiary….How dare they!) it would be a great shame if you overlooked this fantastic little album because you were stupid enough to believe a few anonymous lemon-sucking individuals on an internet music forum. Go. Buy. Rock Out
Ross