Review Summary: My way home is through you
It’s hardly surprising that as time goes on, albums like
The Black Parade have been the subject of a complete overhaul in opinion on sites like this and RYM; the ten year effect is a real thing, and it’s leading to once-maligned acts in the more “nerdy” circles getting re-evaluated to the point where most are like “okay this is actually really good”. It’s not the 2000s and early 2010s anymore. The cultural blowback that some dub “emo-phobia” is no longer the dominant stench that people who like this stuff have to deal with, and for good reason; it was stupid. Anyways, the album was a masterpiece in all but maybe the track ordering, but even that likely had its reasons as My Chemical Romance have always been pretty deliberate with the way things are structured, it’s just a personal preference in that regard.
Also not a surprise, is how the B-sides to
The Black Parade are constructed; they’re a great batch of overlooked gems from a band that has never truly released an outright dud. Gerard Way’s emotive delivery is just as apparent here as it is on the album these were cut from. Even though it’s easy to see
why these are B-sides, for any other band in this niche, songs like these would be big hits on a full-length album. It’s remarkable how well these ragtag “emo” kids (as they were labeled) pay attention to the finer details. Nowhere is this more apparent on this EP than the opener “My Way Home Is Through You”; for as great as it is, it definitely didn’t fit the theme of the main album, as it feels much more like a
Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge number akin to the recently resurrected “Bury Me in Black” that Way and co. have been playing at their reunion shows.
The other two main additions, “Kill All Your Friends” and “Heaven Help Us”, feel like they have more thematic ties to the album, the latter of which feels like it was originally intended as the album’s closer instead of “Famous Last Words”, and that would’ve been an interesting alternative. Really, the only song that clearly doesn’t feel
Black Parade-y is “My Way Home Is Through You”. The live renditions of the aforementioned “Famous Last Words” and the album’s titular track “Welcome to the Black Parade” are quite good, but somewhat inessential, as they released the phenomenal live album
The Black Parade Is Dead! not long before the rest of these B-sides came out, and the performances there were stronger than they are here.
My Chemical Romance is one of the seminal bands of the “mall emo” movement of the 2000s. This release is essential if you’ve run through all the main stuff and just want more to scratch that itch that, in some people’s eyes, only they can truly scratch. By no means is this the starting point, but for those already entrenched in the wonderful world of
The Black Parade, these are a great companion piece, even if not completely fitting with the theme of the world Way and co. crafted with it.
