Yeah, I think I need a new feature for the site. It really doesn’t have that much of it’s own personality yet. Mostly just taking ideas from other people and changing them up a little. But this one, I thought up all on my own. Yeah. Okay, it’s not original, but I don’t read any sites that have the same thing, so I’ll call it my own for now.
So here’s a brief rundown of how it’s going to work. Basically, every month I pick a band to do a short review on (and I mean short. I’m not sure how to review bands/music.). I guess for the most part, it’ll be whatever band I’m listening to the most at the time. Unless I’m still listening to the same thing two months in a row, in which case I’ll choose one at random. To kick off this little feature, I present to you My Chemical Romance.
I’ve honestly only been listening to them for 4 or 5 days, but I cannot deny that MCR is one kickass band. Plainly stated, they rock. Solid guitar work, some impressive drumming, and excellent vocals all wrap themselves together quite nicely to form one helluva band. The genre issue is a little up in the air with these guys, as they sound like they could be either punk or rock, while having a slight tinge of goth and/or emo in the lyrics. In the end though, genre doesn’t matter much, because they still kick ass.
A relatively new band, MCR has realeased a grand total of two albums in the last two years. While their debut I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love is a lot more praised by their fans, the new one, Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge is in my opinion just as good as the original. While I haven’t heard most of the songs on Three Cheers…, what I have heard is just as impressive to me as the stuff off their first disc. I guess a good place to start would be taking a look at some of the songs.
I’ve listened to the entirety of I Brought You My Bullets… and there are a lot of things to pick out. First off, the apparent most popular song (and incidentally the first I listened to), “Vampires Will Never Hurt you” is a great song, but I don’t really see what the hype is about. I personally prefer the upbeat and ironically worded “Headfirst for Halos”. It’s fast, almost poppy (while retaining the hardcore), and the lyrics are the exact opposite. I’m not going to get into it much more, but they contrast with the music in an almost artsy kind of way. Another song that I like quite a bit is “Skylines and Turnstiles”. It’s mostly your basic rock, and I just find it more catchy than most of the other songs. “Drowning Lessons” is damn sweet too, but I find “Cubicles” to be a little irritating. An overall great album, with a good bit of variety without changing the way they play. Very nicely done.
At this point in time, I’ve only listened to two songs from Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, but I love the songs. One, “The Ghost of You” is one of those slow songs that isn’t a slow long, like Lifehouse’s “Hanging by a Moment”. It’s got a lot of emotion in it, and some of the best vocals that frontman Gerard Way has ever sung. The other song “You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison” is a real grab bag of sounds. It starts off sounding reminiscent of Hoobastank’s “Can I Buy You a Drink”, but then quickly goes to a much faster paced and takes on a tone suited well to speed metal. Well, maybe not that fast, but the chorus is pretty damn fast. Oh, and the song kicks absolute ass. If you’ve never heard of MCR before and want to download something to see what they’re like, go with this one. It’s my favourite song from the guys, and it’s just (for lack of a better word) “fun” to listen to.
Now, I need to point out some general things about the band. The one thing that I really notice is that a lot of their songs have obscenely long titles. If I had a band, I’d use almost all one word titles, but that’s just me. I don’t know why, but this bugs me. I’ve never seen any bands with such a tendency, but then again, I haven’t listened to a lot of lesser-known bands. The other thing that I took note of right away is that most of the time, the vocals are particularly screamy. I’m not a fan of bands that scream a lot (how the Hell do I like Slipknot?), but it’s not too common to be annoying, so I’ve no trouble tolerating it. Lastly, it’s often hard to make out the lyrics. Not quite AFI hard, but if you like to know what they’re saying, you’re going to go through some frustration if you try to figure them out on your own. Me, I like to know the words so I can sing along, so I’m slightly annoyed, but like the screaming, I can brush it off easily.
Overall, My Chemical Romance is an excellent band, and for the sake of keeping it real, it would be a lot better off if they didn’t get the mass attention that ruins a lot of bands (see Good Charlotte, Serial Joe, etc.). They’re definitely on my “good enough to buy” list, and I suggest going to check them out right away, cause I’m pretty confident that 100% of my readership has never heard of ’em. Now, can anyone tell me if I’m supposed to use underline for album titles and quotation marks for song titles? I did it the other way for the HIM CD review, and I have no clue which way it’s supposed to be. I just never know. I’d use italics, but I find they’re too hard to make out with this font at this size.
Anyhow, that’s this month’s “Band of the Month”, and I hope that I can do this for at least a couple months before I forget about it. It seems like a good idea to me, and I like the feature, so I’ll be keeping up with it as best as I can.