A Grand, Powerful Concept Album

Back in 2002, My Chemical Romance released their first album on a small label, only a year after forming. That debut album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love was a collection of dark tunes mainly fueled by Gerard Way’s depression and addiction to alcohol and pain killers. However, many of those tracks had a certain pop sensibility surrounding them, and after much touring, MCR signed to a major label. It was with their sophomore album Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge that the band broke into the mainstream. However, for all the positive attention they received, much of the discussions about My Chemical Romance were criticisms of them simply cashing in on the emo trend; their image coupled with their dark music and teen anthem “I’m Not Okay (I Promise” earned them a special place in countless drama-obsessed teenagers across the nation and the world. But many of the people who looked deeper into that album found a band with a true passion for music, a band that showed promise, and a band that was anything but just another part of the emo trend.

So fast-forward to 2006; the band had gone through some key changes, such as a new drummer in the form of Bob Bryar. But most notably, lead singer Gerard Way had made the choice to ditch the drugs, the alcohol, and go completely sober. This gave him a new sense of control over his life, and also significantly changed his level of consciousness during performance and the writing of new material. His chaotic maniacal stage persona certainly remained in place, but now he had control over the madness. With this new sense of control, the band’s doors were opened. New possibilities made themselves brutally apparent as to where they could now take their music. And with this newfound ambition, the band released a new album in 2006: The Black Parade.

Though both of their previous albums had featured loose concepts, The Black Parade was a full-fledged concept album. The band constructed an alternate image, donning black marching band outfits and altered hairstyles. They essentially placed all their cards on the table with this album. Either it would fail miserably or propel them closer to the top; no matter what the outcome, they had every desire to risk it all and pour out all their ambition into the making of this album. Everything about it, from the videos to the beautifully designed insert booklet, and of course, the intricately written music, was given complete attention by the group. And what did this ambition lead to? A darn good album and even greater success for the band.

Okay so here’s the album’s concept. A man is dying of cancer, and in his last moments, many parts of his life flash before his eyes. Images of war and evil deeds he has done, and things he never did do, all flash before his eyes. Some say that death comes to you in the form of your most vivid memory, and the patient’s biggest memory is seeing a parade with his father when he was young. So, death comes to him in the form of a black parade. Now obviously death is no new topic to the band, but as always, they prevent it from being overly depressing or downright overdramatic teen angst. Rather, the album is a soaring look at death as a large picture, almost mocking it in the face, addressing it as the definite thing it is. The album has touching moments, violent moments, and of course, hugely bombastic moments, most exemplified by the hit single “Welcome to the Black Parade.”

Musically the band was not prepared to remain at a standstill in their career. They absolutely pushed their sound on this album, bringing it to places it had never been before. The album is packed with 70s influenced sounds, especially some of the guitar solos such as in “I Don’t Love You” and “Welcome to the Black Parade.” The opening track “The End” is slightly reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s “In the Flesh,” which opened their own concept album The Wall. Coincidence? I think not. It is quite obvious that the group embraced their influences quite openly on this album, but they did it without sounding like some cheap copy. The album still has an injection of that brutal MCR sound, such as the roaring metallic bridge on “This is How I Disappear.”

The album opens up with “The End” and “Dead!” two tracks that essentially function as one. The first is a short intro, immediately presenting the band’s over-the-top theatrical ambitions with its lyrics of invitation (“Now come one all to the tragic affair…”). Heck, it even comes complete with finger snaps, sprinkles of piano, and classic “oooo…” backing vocals. It starts with the sound of a heart monitor’s beep establishing the beat of the song, leading into the acoustic verses. Then with a crash of drums the guitars come roaring in with an almost orchestral quality. And the song crescendos into the opening chords of “Dead!” a pure rock n roll track that essentially laughs in the face of death. “Have you heard the news that you’re dead?/No one ever had much nice to say/I think they never liked you anyway.” The song serves as a display for some nice guitar solos by Ray. Overall, the album is a nice treat guitar-wise. Ray absolutely shreds away in the outro of “House of Wolves,” but also demonstrates greatly calculated melodic ability on the solo in “I Don’t Love You.” The guitars on this album were layered in such a way as to create as big of a sound as possible. They have a really nice thick sound; perfect examples are the metal riffs in the bridges of “This is How I Disappear” and “Mama.”

One of the album’s most intricate moments is its flagship single “Welcome to the Black Parade.” The track’s intro is a huge epic build-up, with sounds of marching band instruments slowly being layered in the background, along with a light guitar part. Finally everything erupts and is allowed to ring out and breathe, but only for a moment as the drums roll of into the song’s main, rock driven section. The track is packed with huge chants, bombastic choruses, and of course, marching bands, making for one monster of a track. Later in the album comes “Mama,” one of the album’s other most ambitious tracks. The song expresses the patient expressing his negative views about life, and the hopelessness of life after death. He sings of the evil deeds he has done and the war that he fought in. The song begins with a sort of German feel to it, and the sound of bombs can be heard in the background. The track is one of the darkest on the album with lyrics such as “Mama we all go to hell” and “We’ll let the fires just bathe us.” Now remember that this is part of the storyline, and if someone said that to me in real life I’d look at them like they’re psycho. The bridge is pure metal, packed with screams and a huge riff that just rips through everything in its path. And all of this quiets down to a cameo by Liza Minnelli, right before a huge bar-style chant laughing in the face of death.

The band even included a piano ballad titled “Cancer,” as a sort of dialogue from the patient as he’s on his death bed. The song has the ability to pull tears, and Gerard puts forth a genuinely passionate vocal, showing him at perhaps his most melodic yet. The track’s short, but certainly serves its purpose. It’s just a pure, passionate, good song. On the flip side of things, “Sleep” comes across as the patient urging people to not allow his death to affect their lives. “So shut your eyes, kiss me goodbye, and sleep…” he sings to them. In all of these tracks, the only one that seems out of place is the old fashioned rocker “Teenagers.” The song is pure rock n roll, in its purest form, complete with a blues style solo in the bridge, and vocal-drum breakdowns that are perfect for arenas. Even in its odd positioning, as Gerard has said, it is a very important track as it addresses the issue of teen violence.

“Disenchanted” deserves special attention, for it is a very touching track, one that for some odd reason was looked over by me for a while when I got the album. The song’s main riff starts out acoustic in the intro, but when it makes a return in the bridge, there’s a certain huge quality to it; and allow me to say that the acoustic intro adds an amazing purity to the song, especially with the patient’s (Gerard) reflective lyrics of his life. It’s just such a touching, epic, powerful to a great album. And who can deny that album closer “Famous Last Words” did its job well? Sudden starts and stops, a great main riff, killer drum fills, soaring guitar solos, so many aspects of the album, are packed into this epic song. And the harmonized vocal outro over the organ brings the album to a beautiful close with one final repetition of the infinitely powerful chorus: “I am not afraid to keep on living/I am not afraid to walk this world alone/Honey if you stay I’ll be forgiving/Nothing you can say can stop me going home.”

The band chose Rob Cavallo to produce the album because they were impressed with his work on Green Day’s own concept album American Idiot. And ironically, this album blows that one completely out of the water. While Green Day did have a nice album on their hands, its scope was limited and clichéd, and many of the tracks were boring. But what My Chemical Romance have done with The Black Parade is push their band’s limits, something that more bands need to do now. They have created a work of art, not just with the music, but visually as well. Be sure to check out the videos that went with this album, and you will know exactly what I’m talking about. A modern masterpiece? I’d say so.