Review Summary: My Chemical Romance's third studio album is a mixture of a new sound, a dark story, and -- oddly enough -- "influences" from arena bands of old.
Wow, it's that time of year again.
Time really does fly when you're "famous". Yup, it's My Chemical Romance's 3rd studio album, "The Black Parade." Getting right down to business, I'd like to let you know in all honesty I had high expectations for this album. I mean, after all, MCR is (don't judge me) my favorite band. But maybe I set my expectations a little too high, because the album didn't really live up to what I had hoped for. Especcially certain songs like "Cancer". I mean, really. "The darkest song ever"? Not even close.
That's not to say the album is bad. Not at all. Infact, I was even impressed at times.
This album, like all of the band's past work, has two major things that were to be expected. 1.) MCR has, once again, changed music styles. This time, they left both the post-hardcore (Bullets) and pop-punk (Revenge) sounds in favor of a more mainstream rock sound, which really shows. During many interviews, they have sighted many old arena bands as their influences, which is a bit of an understatement since some of the songs sound like they were ripped straight from their "influences". But they sprinkled enough of themselves into each song, making for some of the funniest ("Teenagers" and "Blood") and darkest ("The Sharpest Lives") songs I've ever heard. 2.) Again, like all of their past albums, this one has a story. Unlike their past albums, however, this story takes up the whole CD, and even has a bonus track which I think of as a "bonus ending". Of course, however, the story is confusing, and at times even idiotic. But still, A for effort.
To end my first-ever review in as un-biased a way as possible... If you love MCR, you will love this album because... hell, it's MCR. If you dislike them, I recommend downloading at least one track from this album before judging this album.
My personal score: 8 out of 10.
