Review Summary: One of My Chemical Romance's most highly-anticpated songs finally gets the studio treatment. How will fans react to the changes?
I have been anticipating this EP in particular since the track-listing was first announced in September, as were most MCR fans. This is the EP that would include the "fan favorite,"
The World Is Ugly. The obsession that fans have with this first blossomed from a live video of My Chemical Romance performing the track. Word got around and it soon became a gem that people would classify as a track that My Chemical Romance would never release unless they were breaking up, due to a seemingly often-misquoted interview with the band. I enjoyed what I could make out of the terrible audio on the video I saw years and years ago, and it led me to aniticipate the track. I was never worried about the band breaking up (they're not, guys) and so I picked up my copy of Number Three with eager ears.
The tracks to be found on Number Three are
The World Is Ugly and
The Light Behind Your Eyes. These are the softest songs to come out of the Conventional Weapons project thus far, and it can also be argued that these are the most emotional songs to be released by MCR since The Black Parade. Now, I've taken notice that some fans are disappointed with the final product of
The World Is Ugly, but I enjoy it thoroughly. We can't blame the band for maturing out of some of the lyrics that were previously written for the previous, unfinished version. We can't say "Hey, this song sucks because you changed it from what we originally heard from a leaked concert video." I mean, I guess you guys can but I'm not going to. I write poems and songs and reviews and short stories etc. and understand that the writing process is a long one, full of rewrites and the final product may not even end up being what you had anticipated it to be at the start. I get that the lyrics changed due to different things and don't really see a problem with the final song. For those of you that enjoy the crappy audio on the original, by all means go ahead and download that to your iPod or what have you. I have a feeling it won't be as pleasing to the ears.
The lyrics are a major factor in enjoying the songs My Chemical Romance releases. I've been a fan for as long as I've enjoyed music, and the lyrics that this band put into their previous releases really felt like they spoke directly to me at times. Gerard would promise not to let the vampires hurt me and then go on to talk about brutally murdering someone in their sleep. I get the hints, Gerard. I know you want me. I mean...what?
Moving on, Danger Days seemed to move away from the raw emotion displayed in previous MCR releases for a more "save the future" message. This wasn't bad, it was just different. I enjoyed the lyrics and can tell by the lyrics found on Number Three that this is definitely what turned into Danger Days. The lyrics in
The World Is Ugly seem to be talking about living for tomorrow and carrying on through the ***storm because even though the world is ugly, you're beautiful to me.
The Light Behind Your Eyes goes for a "remember me even though I'm gone" type of thing, which is nice. Like we saw in Number Two, however, the lyrics do seem a little forced. Maybe it's because we've seen a more...mature band that moved on from the melancholy lyrics that can somewhat be found on these EPs. I still really enjoy the lyrics on Number Three, I was just interested in seeing what MCR had for "emotion" after Danger Days.
The strings in
The Light Behind Your Eyes make me ecstatic. This is one of the only times an orchestra has been featured in a My Chemical Romance song and every time an orchestra is on a song, MCR incorporates the instruments incredibly well. I know that
#SINGItForJapan (yes, that was a real thing) wasn't technically a new song, but the incorporation of stringed instruments in that song shed a new light on the source material and made me fall in love with it all over again. I'd be so very happy to hear a My Chemical Romance live album with strings as the backing band, or maybe even an MTV Unpugged episode featuring them? I've seen some acoustic videos and I think that in the right atmosphere the band could work wonders with the tracks.
"And as always, innocent like roller coasters /
Fatality is like ghosts in snow and you have no idea what you're up against /
because I've seen what they look like /
Becoming perfect as if they were sterling silver chainsaws going cascading"
Those lyrics are featured in hushed whispers at the end of one of my favorite My Chemical Romance tracks,
Vampires Will Never Hurt You. If you listen closely at the end of
The World Is Ugly, you can hear something similar that would make any classic MCR fan absolutely radiant with joy.
"And we’ll never be the same /
Like ghosts in the snow /
Like ghosts in the sun"
This is a small reminder to the old fans of the band that they're still the same band we fell in love with back in the early 2000's. Most newer fans won't pick up on it, but I absolutely loved hearing the same line that was first whispered into my young, teenage ears forever ago. And no, we aren't talking about "Get in the van, I have candy."
All in all, there isn't much more to say about the two songs found on My Chemical Romance's Number Three. This album is softer than its predecessors yet features some small remnants of an MCR of old. The overall score I'll give this EP is 4/5 beautifully ugly stars. Go listen to the tracks on MCR's YouTube and hear them for yourself. Do yourself a favor and pick up the EP, which is now available on iTunes and Amazon.
