Review Summary: My Chemical Romance gets happy.
Just when you thought My Chemical Romance was done with their silly, yet generally decent, concept albums, they break their promise of giving the fans a stripped down punk album and return yet again with
Danger Days: True Lives Of The Fabulous Kill Joys. Just by the album title you already know the band has ditched the idea of an Iggy Pop inspired album. While that fact is disappointing indeed, what we are left with on
Danger Days, really isn’t all that terrible, and honestly could have been much worse.
The most obvious change the band made is they tried to shed the whole “dark” imagery, every album they had release previous was based around blood, guns, revenge, and cancer patients, and they were completely serious about all of it. Now this new My Chemical Romance, sheds they seriousness, and while they still draw influences from these dark concepts, they just use them in such a silly manner. The whole plot of the album is just ridiculous, and it’s supposed to be that way! The entire thing is modeled after an over the top comic book idea singer, Gerard Way had a few years back. (Hell, they have a song called “Vampire Money” for crying out loud.) If this change was for the better or not, it’s too early to tell. I do say though, while listening to the hallowed out rings of songs like, “Bulletproof Heart,” I cannot help but think back to the days of
I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, the glory years of songs like “Drowning Lessons” and their debatably best song, “Demolition Lovers.” I miss those times.
The opening song is the quite ridiculously titled track, “Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na),” despite the beyond stupid song name, the track is actually very good. Singing about drugs, rebelling, and ‘***ing like a Kennedy,’ the band produces a very fun song with a nice guitar riff and infectious chorus. The biggest thing the band tries to milk with this new album is really loud and echoing vocal work from Gerard, this is quite a shame though being that Gerard is not all that fantastic of a singer. The strategy works will with “Na Na Na.” But the song “SING” for example: this song could have been so fantastic had it have been done by a different band. The chorus is a loud shouting of the lines, ‘sing it for the boys, and sing it for the girls.’ They obviously tried to go for something epic here but ultimately failed because Way’s vocals just do not fit the song and frankly come off being very nasally.
The album takes its worst turn though with, “Planetary (Go)” an attempt at a party anthem-type song with some really crappy synthesizer work. Nothing in this song sounds right, the drums are incredibly boring, the guitar work sucks, and the vocals are so bland it hurts. The album quickly picks itself up though with the track, “Save Yourself, I’ll Hold Them Back,” the most classic My Chem.-sounding song of the album. The synthesizer is turned off for this song and they thankfully go back to their old formula of just a plain punk-inspired rock song. The majority of the second half of this album follows that formula actually, which is why the second half is so obviously superior to the first half. It is wonderful songs like “DESTROYA,” which sounds like a Misfits cover, that remind me that My Chemical Romance isn’t all just show, there is in fact some talent in there somewhere.
This album is definitely not horrible by any means, but it is incredibly imbalanced. There is such an even split of really good songs to really not-so good songs that it is hard to come up with a clear decision on how to feel about the album. Ultimately though the good songs make up for the bad ones in my opinion. That being said though, this is probably the bands worst album. For being their worst though it is still not god-awful which is saying something for a band like My Chemical Romance. The main point being, you will not find anything you can connect to emotionally with this album like you could with a few songs on their previous albums.
Danger Days, is just totally mindless fun that one cannot look at with a too critical eye or you will just be greatly disappointed.
