My Chemical Romance Head To The Jersey Shore For Brash New Album

[ofyourdeath.livejournal.com]

We dive in to Rock Week with a look at MCR's long-awaited Black Parade follow-up.

By James Montgomery, Jan 19 2010 1:29 PM EST

We're kicking off Rock Week at MTV News with a look at My Chemical Romance's yet-untitled new effort, which sees them ditching the preening and pancake makeup in favor of some seriously strutting riffs and more than a few nods to heavy metal's studded past.

Here's what we know about the album, the follow-up to MCR's ambitious 2006 rock opera The Black Parade: It will most certainly not be The Black Parade II.

More specifically, there will be no high-concept videos, no Queen-biting guitar heroics, no cameos by Liza Minnelli. Gone are the makeup and the uniforms and much of the pretense. Instead, we get MCR: stripped. For nearly a year now, they've been talking up the back-to-basics approach they've taken for album four, promising, "It's not going to be hiding behind a wall of fiction or uniforms and makeup anymore ... there's a purity to it," and calling it their "love letter to rock and roll."

Working with producer Brendan O'Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, Mastodon), they've made what — by most early accounts — seems to be a fast-and-loose throwback. It's an album packed with songs that, as frontman Gerard Way told Spin magazine last month, recall "that era when heavy metal was yet to become hair rock."

That is to say that the new MCR sound an awful lot like the old Judas Priest, or the old Def Leppard, or even the old (only) MC5. There's a strut to the songs — a cocksure, fist-pumping, ready-to-brawl swagger, as evidenced by this live version of "Death Before Disco," which they unveiled last year at Hollywood's Roxy Theatre. And, according to Spin, other new tracks — like "Trans Am" and "Black Dragon Fighting Society" — are much in that same vein.

But, as this is still a My Chem album, there are some overarching themes at play too (you couldn't expect them just to quit cold-turkey, could you?). As Way told Spin, "The album has these feelings of being like a 15-year-old kid at the Jersey Shore, trying to win a Mötley Crüe mirror or an Iron Maiden hat. ... [There are] many themes: that a band and an audience can be immortal through rock 'n roll, even if just for one night. The power of believing in something. Being a survivor. ... Leaving home in order to come back. ... If Black Parade was about the sweeping gesture, this is about the bold statement."

The magic of a guitar played loudly. The thrill of the open road. The belief that we can all be something better, even if just for one night: The new MCR sound an awful lot like roughly 85 percent of the Boss' best stuff.

But for all that's been written about the new My Chem record, there are a few details still missing: like, for example, what it's going to be called or when it will be in stores (we hear May). Regardless, the wait is nearly over. There's a new MCR album on the horizon, and we're dying to hear what this band can do when they ditch the gimmicks and just play lean, mean, no bullsh-- rock about New Jersey. Snooki, you've been warned.

It's Rock Week at MTV News, and to celebrate, we're taking a look at some of the most-anticipated new albums of 2010. Stay tuned all week for more!


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Comments

[toadclubber.livejournal.com]

no, i really don't like bruce springsteen.
and sure, it may be a compliment based on their musicianship, but that's not why i like my chemical romance. i don't want to listen to a bruce springsteen ripoff album, i want to hear my chemical romance.

i don't get why it's incomprehensible that i have a strong distaste for a certain artist . . . ?

[spuzz.livejournal.com]

I guess just because he's a great one and I find that to be a huge compliment to them, as I said. The idea is surely that it won't be a Bruce Springsteen ripoff album, but that it is inspired by him and his style of music (pure classic rock)(such as The Black Parade was inspired by Queen and The Who). My Chemical Romance is inspired by these people, their sound comes from the artists that came before them so you know, you are listening to MCR. And like I said, I just believe there are worse things, for me, for MCR to sound like and be compared to but it's a matter of different tastes.

It's not incomprehensible, I'm just a Springsteen fangirl so I am sometimes surprised and baffled when people do not like him. But that's my epic defensiveness of bands and musicians I enjoy coming into play so apologies if I offended you.

[toadclubber.livejournal.com]

it just scares me when it is said that they sound an awful lot like 85 percent of springsteen's music.
that wording, to me, sounds like more than just inspiration, it sounds like a copy.

saying that it was my worst nightmare was an exaggeration, certainly, but it definitely doesn't fill me with hope for the album. it is about personal taste and i've just never liked bruce springsteen at all, so hearing that they're sounding a lot like him just . . . scares me, like i said.
i'm being painfully redundant now. oops.

[spuzz.livejournal.com]

You could make the argument that TBP was 85% Queen and The Who but it was still MCR. The point was it was borrowing from genres and themes and etc. The comment below makes a great point in terms of the themes Bruce uses, the idea of escaping and rebellion, wind in your hair going to a rock show etc. I very seriously doubt they are going to make a record that sounds exactly like Bruce Springsteen, because well they couldn't. Steen is a classic rock guitarist with influences in blues. This is a band that's also making a 90 second thrash song and whose other influence for this record is MC5. So I guess what I'm saying is MCR is MCR but their influences have always been stated. That doesn't mean they ARE those influences but I don't think you can ignore what inspires them.

Anyway, I hope my comments make some bit of sense.

[book-crash.livejournal.com]

Please understand, spuzz: She's terrified that she'll hate it because she doesn't like Bruce Springsteen's music. I see your point that a band isn't their influences. In the article, it wasn't said Bruce Springsteen's best was just an influence, it was said that "The new MCR sound an awful lot like roughly 85 percent of the Boss' best stuff."
It is not unfounded to be afraid a band will go in a direction one can't enjoy.

[spuzz.livejournal.com]

I apologize if I'm being insensitive. I'm not trying to criticize her feelings, more just discussing a different point of view. I feel there are lots of different ways to read that one line in a larger article, that's all.

[jezrana.livejournal.com]

I think they'll still sound like MCR no matter what. I'm not always a fan of music they cite as influences, but they've always done a good job of taking what inspires them and making it their own.