Picture yourself in this situation:
You’re in a band that has released their first album. Magazines such as “KERRANG!” have given it great press and have tipped you off as “the great white hope of emo”. What would you do going into recording for the 2nd album? Throw yourself in a completely different direction? Crumble under the pressure? Release an album which will rock the current music scene? Well, Gerard Way, please stand up. You have done one thing that so many bands so badly extremely well. You’ve refined you’re style; admittedly, it’s a bit more mainstream but not drastically. You’ve taken that, recorded it and came out with an album which, although being aimed at the mainstream, manages to keep to the standards of the first album.
3 Cheers for sweet revenge musically picks up where “I brought you my bullets” left off: with opening track Helena’s intro quite mellow. That is until it bursts into a crescendo of guitar and drums, My Chemical Romance are back, and they have a point to prove. They’re not around to be one-hit-wonders, never to be heard of again. 3 Cheers for sweet revenge puts this point across with gusto, making sure that this time, the world will be flocking around them.
Instrumentally, My Chemical Romance has evolved to an extent; with the riffs not being as boring as some on their previous effort. Songs like “I never told you what I do for a living” have riffs which compliment the mood of the songs lyrics: making most of the songs work well as units. Further to this, the intro to “I’m not ok”, while not being the most intricate, leads quite well into the 1st verse. A slight down point about the instruments is Mikey Way’s bass playing, at time it just disappears while other times, it appears, butt ugly and brutal, not doing the music any favours at all
The lyrics of the album are occasionally irritating but on other occasions, they do make the song. A plus on this point is that Gerard is actually STICKING to his vocal range instead of straining to reach notes and sounding awful. The songs can be greatly complimented by the part of Gerard’s vocal range which can be described as a scratchy half-scream. For example, hang ‘em high “last convulsion, save the choir, by the grace of god” may not sound like a brilliant lyric, but using the scratchy half-scream, Gerard makes it sound good.
In comparison to “I brought you my bullets” however, this doesn’t stack up. Looking at this albums track list, I notice one problem. There’s no demolition lovers-esque track on here, which is a shame as I consider that song to be the boys’ best moment, and to not give it a shot again, I find criminal. Also, there was a strange charm in hearing Gerard struggling to reach notes that he never would be able to; maybe I’m alone, but I thought that showed that he was trying, whereas now, it seems like he’s just settled in. I have, however, been assured that Gerard is an awful singer live, so whether this is a production trick, I don’t know.
All things considered, I think that this album, while doing well, doesn’t stack up to their previous. However, that’s not to say it’s terrible, but “I brought you my bullets…” is one of my favourite albums of recent years, so for me, it was going to be hard to look at this without imagining what it could have been. But credit where credit is due, this album is nowhere near being a flop; in fact, I’d give it a strong 3.5 if you have the 1st album and a 4.5 if you’re just looking into getting into the NJ boys.
which makes the overall rating 4/5
*Star Track*
The best song from this album and possibly, the best MCR song in the opinion of the masses is “Thank You for the Venom. From the intro, you know you’re in for a treat, then Gerard opens up with the line “sister, I’m not much a POET BUT A CRIMINAL, AND YOU NEVER HAD A CHANCE!” The drumbeat in this song has something which links everything together so well; Mikey doesn’t wreck the song, Frank Iero’s guitar riff in the intro, throughout the song and in the solo is just pure brilliance for a mainstream pop-punk/ pseudo emo band. And to close the case for this being what is quite possibly the best song of 2004, the chorus lyrics sung by Gerard are brilliance as well
“So give me all your poison
And give me all your pills
And give me all your hopeless hearts
And make me ill
You're running after something
That you'll never kill
If this is what you want
Then fire at will”
*Star Track Rating = 5/5*
