My Chemical Romance's 2002 debut album was a particularly striking representative of this ever-changing genre, in which bands combine elements of emo, hardcore and even metal in an inventive way. Having signed a contract with a major label (in this case, Reprise Records), MCR returned in 2004 with the album ‘Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge’. With the help of major league producer Howard Benson, they edited out the slight excesses of ‘I Brought You My Bullets You Brought Me Your Love’, resulting in a rewarding, damn relentless product. Ghosts roam this Sweet Revenge, and the bloody lovers on the cover are no joke. ‘Will I die for you? That's the answer... I've got you in my sights,‘ Gerard Way exclaims in “Hang ”em High’. There is also a cinematic concept here - ‘A man's story. About a woman. And the corpses of a thousand evil people...’ - the liners intoned. ‘You know what they do to people like us in prison’ begins “In the middle of a shootout / In the centre of a restaurant”. Musically, the film is claustrophobic, messy and full of adrenaline, just like the Tokyo crime shootout it was probably inspired by. Imagine antiheroes jumping from side to side while firing dual pistols - in slow motion, you know - and you're close. Put an old At the Drive-In record on in the background, and suddenly you'll be shot through the arm and down to your last clip. With its sparse, reverent production, constantly hyper-‘Let's get to the next note NOW!’ instrumentation and great thematic songwriting, Three Cheers is teeming with influences that MCR shares with their peers, but the latest work from fellow travellers Thursday and A.F.I. doesn't have the frenetic immediacy, the rawness that is so appealing. My Chemical Romance seems to have built-in restraints that prevent it from flying off the handle into a quiet-loud screamo stereotype or strange transitions to choral parts or weepy piano. Something like ‘Ghost of You’ might slow things down, but it doesn't affect the guitar overdrive or the inventively explosive drumming. Among the album's highlights are the propulsive chain shots of ‘Give “Em Hell Kid” and “To the End”, where layers of vocals enhance the sharpness of modernist post-punk, or the loud “Thank You for the Venom”. No doubt, Reprise has high hopes for ‘My Chemical Romance’ and ‘Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge’. But its accessibility pays tribute to the anger and bullet holes in the black leather.
- Johnny Loftus (allmusic.com)
