Reviews de l'album

NME 27-09-10

Une review chanson par chanson du nouvel album !

Citation :

My Chemical Romance, 'Danger Days...' - First Listen


By Dan Martin


Posted on 27/09/10 at 12:10:28 pm


My Chemical Romance release their fourth album 'Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys' on November 22. Dan Martin has heard it...



Back in February I heard six songs that were apparently destined for the April-due fourth album from My Chemical Romance. It was exciting. Gerard Way told me subsequently how they were done with hiding behind alter-egos and were stoked to be making a back-to-basics rock album.



The songs were good, some of them great. But with fabulous hindsight, the whole thing sounded just a little bit too of this Earth. Not long after Bob Bryar left in still-mysterious circumstances. Then the band announced they were going to back to do a few more tweaks.
Thank Hell they did. Because what feels like an eternity later, on Friday I went into the record company under armed guard (not really) and heard the record as it has eventually materialised. And OH MY GOD you’re going to like this.


‘Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys’ changes the game in exactly the same way ‘The Black Parade’ did, while managing to be completely different from it in every single way.
It channels the band’s genius tastes for the absurd and the outlandish into a record in gleeful love with the macho pleasures of old school rock’n’roll. The jazz hands aren’t visible to the naked eye, but they’re there in spirit.



From the songs I heard back in February, when Gerard believed the album was finished, the garage-thrash ‘Black Dragon Fighting Society’ and daughter-ballad ‘Light Behind Your Eyes’ have been dropped completely.
And the best song from that bunch, ‘Bulletproof Heart’ has been tantalisingly kept back from the copy doing the rounds in the UK, but apparently will make the final tracklisting. Back then it was camp and Killersy and pop, but you should also remember that the songs from that sampler which did survive are barely recognisable from the originals.
This is the best rock record of the year by such a margin that you actually feel rather embarrassed for everybody else. This isn’t over-excitement. In 2010’s final act, consider rock’n’roll saved.



‘Look Alive, Sunshine’
Things kick off all ‘Songs For The Deaf’ as our host of sorts, pirate radio DJ Dr Death Defy welcomes the Killjoys with a great big clarion call. It’s the bit from the start of the trailer, basically.

‘Na Na Na’
The single, as you know. A hare-brained garage spectacle of a thing that reinvents MCR as day-glo outlaws at a Motocross rally. Thing is, as thrillingly fresh-faced as it is, it’s actually the most ‘MCR so far’ thing to be found here, which is really saying something. From here on in, all bets are off.

‘Sing’
Starting off synthy, slinky and just a little bit funky, ‘Sing’ then erupts into another call to euphoric call to mass doing-stuff-together as waves of filthy bass cascade around Gerard as he sings, “You’ve got to be what tomorrow needs” as he dodges elephant-stomp drums. This is the likely second single.

‘Planetary (Go!)’
More straight-ahead rock underpinned by a slight Giorgio Moroder thing going on in the background, giving way to scattershot machine-gunny guitars as the album hits its masculine stride.

‘The Only Hope For Me Is You’
The original version we heard of this was a big emotive ballad in the vein of ‘I Don’t Love You’. Here it’s synthed up and theatrical, almost turning into a 4/4 house tune at one point before morphing into sabre-toothed gonzoid, robotic thrash. Amazing.

‘Jet-Star And The Kobra Kid / Traffic Report’
Dr Death Deft is back with a traffic report, and an instruction to “die with your mask on if you have to.”

‘Party Poison’
Live versions of this are all over the internet in its original incarnation as ‘Death Before Disco’. The new version is less Hives-y and more bloodcurdling. “This ain’t a party / get off the dancefloor / you wanna get down / I wanna gang war.”



‘Save Yourself, I’ll Hold Them Back’
A massive FM rock love-letter to fans, taking off from the message left at the end of ‘Famous Last Words’ last time round. Lyrically this is familiar territory to what MCR have always done, imploring, “This ain’t a room full of suicides,” giving way to the band’s renewed sense of determination: “We can live forever if you’ve got the time.”

‘The Scarecrow Blues’
This is the best song. A ludicrously gay lighters-aloft Starship style ANTHEM. Except nothing being that simple, it’s buried beneath swathes of thick, filthy crude oil and feedback such that you can barely even hear the vocal. BRAVE.

‘Anytime You Want’
A great big pop song with an irresistible Hall and Oates sheen and very possibly the most memorable chorus on an album not exactly short of them.

‘Destroyah’
Huge tribal goth guitar groove, repeated over and over again like a heavy metal Stone Roses doing something from The Rocky Horror Show, culminating in Gerard screeching the title over and over and over and over again. Insanely heavy, and therefore brilliant.

‘The Kids From Yesterday’
Can’t remember much about this one was cos was still picking self up off the floor after ‘Destroyah’. It’s a bit slow and windswept.

‘Goodnite Dr Death’
And our compere signs off, followed by something so hilarious and brilliant it would be considered a spoiler if we were to reveal it to you now.

‘Vampire Money’
Classic bastard Stooges garage rock, by way of the Tazmanian Devil from Looney Toons. My Chem goof up, freak out, screech off into the sunset. RESULT.

Je pense pas pouvoir retranscrire tout ça dans une traduction correcte, donc je vais pas en faire XD
Mais... OMG il me tarde !!!

Rocksound 29-09-10

Citation :

My Chemical Romance’s ‘Danger Days…’ - Here’s What You Need To Know


Killjoys, listen up! Here's what we learned from hearing the new My Chemical Romance album 'Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys'. Fans and haters alike, come and see what they've created...

Posted Wednesday, 29 September 2010 by Ben Patashnik in
I sat down and listened to the My Chemical Romance album this morning. And this is what I learned…

1. This isn’t the stripped-back garage rock album they initially said they wanted to make…
By now ‘Na Na Na’ has slammed its way around the internet like everyone knew it would, and Gerard Way’s pre-release chat about how thrashy and punky the record was going to be appears to have been borne out… except it hasn’t. Yeah, the aforementioned tune (which is the album’s opening track proper), ‘Party Poison’, Save Yourself, I’ll Hold Them Back’ and ‘DESTROYA’ all sound like some hyperspace version of The Stooges, especially with Way’s none-more-snotty vocals and Ray Toro’s squealing guitar pockmarking everything, but the overall pace of the album is slower than some might have anticipated. Is that a bad thing? Metamorphosing from stadium-bound pomp-rockers directly into speed-punk thrash bastards would have been a step too far and could, arguably, have felt like they were shedding their skin without any coherent rhyme or reason, but the way they’ve used everything they learned on ‘The Black Parade’ and tightened up in certain places feels natural and confident.

2. …but that doesn’t matter at all.
Musically, MCR know how to write a chorus or two. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call an understatement. Where ‘The Black Parade’ was grand in concept, scope and tone, ‘Danger Days…’ is less histrionic, and the band’s approach pays dividends. ‘Bulletproof Heart’ is a glorious anthem spattered with strings and canyon-sized drums, and Gerard’s exhortations to “Sing it for the boys, sing it for the girls” won’t feel at home until they’re booming out of a festival-sized PA next summer. Same with ‘Planetary (GO!)’, which uses drum machines and a few dabbed synths to push the band into different directions than they’ve been previously.

3. This album doesn’t tell the full story of the Killjoys.
Attentive fans will have worked their way around the web already, filling in the narrative blanks, but here’s what we know thus far: set in 2019, the album is effectively guided by Dr Death – he’s the voice at the beginning of ‘Na Na Na’ – who broadcasts via radio to the Killjoys. Someone called S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W is involved (he took the mugshots the band plastered on their website) and the whole thing is some twisted view of a future America; the closing track ‘Vampire Money’ makes that clear, and we’re not going to spoil the surprise of just how it does that. Moreover, Way has teamed up with artist Becky Cloonan and writer Shaun Simon to produce a comic book also called ‘The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys’ – this won’t just tell the same story of the album in a different format but will, we’re betting, accompany the narrative and help fans to get a more rounded view of the story on the record. What we’re seeing, essentially, is the creativity of the band taking flight musically, graphically and literally.

4. The band have been experimenting in the studio.
On a first listen, ‘SING’ and the opening to ‘The Kids From Yesterday’ jar because… well… they’re very electronic-based. There are new sounds and new tones everywhere on the record, and the melding of keyboards, alarms, drum machines and all sorts of electronic paraphernalia – probably whatever they could get their hands on and thought might sound good – makes ‘Danger Days…’ sound nothing whatsoever like previous MCR releases. But give them a little time and it all makes a lot more sense, because what the band have tried to do is create a whole new aesthetic, which is why the imagery marks a clean break from everything they used to be.

5. They really like The Cure
‘Summertime’ is so ridiculously similar to late-period The Cure it’s tempting to make loads of snide comments about goths, but writing MCR off as emos is just as congenitally fucking dumb as writing The Cure off as goths. So don’t do it, internet.

6. ‘Danger Days’ will take flight on a massive scale
‘S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W’, ‘Planetary (GO!) and ‘Bulletproof Heart’ are, as I mentioned before, FUCKING GIGANTIC TUNES. And not in a Black Parade-esque ‘Let’s chuck everything at the song and hope it all works out’ way but in the sense that the band have really worked hard on creating songs that boom and heave. Considering they’re a shoe-in for summer festivals in 2011 I reckon they’ll come up with a production that fits the album – not in the sense of sheer, crass size but in the same aesthetic world so the performances will be as much of the Killjoy spectacle as the album and the comic book. Does that sound cool to you? It sounds cool as balls to me.

7. They’re having a hell of a lot of fun
Here’s what a lot of people don’t get: My Chemical Romance are a band. They are not a cult, a phenomenon or anything else, they are some dudes who play some music and play some shows. On ‘Three Cheers…’ and ‘The Black Parade’ that got forgotten, probably by them and definitely by the world at large as they were held up as leaders of a forgotten youth or some such bollocks. The heaviness of the themes on ‘The Black Parade’ and the surrounding media circus that swirled around the band’s every step couldn’t be any further in the past – a comic-book narrative rendered in eye-wateringly bright colours set in the future, for fuck’s sake! This is meant to be the band responsible for every drop of adolescent misery! And one listen to ‘Na Na Na’ rams the point home – it’s a joyous explosion of sound that feels so fun because it’s liberated from having to be meaningful. They’re telling a story, and there’s a beauty in that simplicity.

This isn’t our review of ‘Danger Days’ – that’s coming in a future issue of Rock Sound.

Source

MTV.com 06-10-10

Citation :

My Chemical Romance's Danger Days: Born In The USA


MCR's latest is a uniquely American rock album, albeit one set in the dystopian future, in Bigger Than the Sound.



By James Montgomery




"Let me tell you 'bout the sad man/ Shut up and let me see your jazz hands."


Gerard Way sings that on "Na Na Na," the first single from My Chemical Romance's Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, and I mention it now because it's a pretty apt summation of the entire album, a throttling 50-odd minutes of big guitars, even bigger choruses and shiny, 23rd-century synthesizers that's long on jazz hands, fist pumps and all other manner of jubilant gesticulations, yet short on morose emotions ... or, really, any emotions that couldn't adequately be expressed without Dio-worthy devil horns or lighters thrust aloft.
And that's sort of the point, isn't it? Dangers Days isn't supposed to plumb the same murky depths The Black Parade did or strike the same misfit poses as Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. If it did either of those things, it would be a rehash — and probably quite boring — and My Chem don't do rehashes. They set the past ablaze and walk away from the pyre, stumbling off into the darkness with only the flames to light the way. This is a large part of what makes them a great band: They are fearless, almost to a fault. And Danger Days is most definitely their most fearless album, proudly — almost defiantly — kissing the past goodbye, ditching the pancake makeup and overwrought histrionics for an album's worth of lean, mean, missile-launcher rock.
In the process, MCR have reinvented themselves too. Gone is the band with the slightly foppish Queen obsession and the soft spot for Great White Way theatrics. In their place, we get a gang of bandana-clad desert dwellers, a take-no-prisoners, dust-in-their-teeth band of outlaws, swathed in stinking leathers and reeking of sweat and blood and motor oil. At one point — during the blazing "Party Poison" — Way quotes the MC5 ("Kick out the jams!"), and it's especially fitting here. After all, there's no Liza Minnelli cameo on Danger Days, but there are several by a gravel-throated Gila monster named Dr. Death Defying.

To that end, there's a wild, windswept spirit of freedom that blows through most of the album ... the kind of sexualized sensation that is only unlocked by fast, loud muscle cars, chortling, shovelhead Harleys, and blood-red sunsets over wide-open highways. It's a uniquely American thing — which is proof that, when Way told MTV News last year that MCR were falling in love with being "an American rock-and-roll band," he wasn't kidding — and Danger Days is a uniquely American rock-and-roll album, albeit one set in the dystopian future. It takes its cues from the MC5, the ham-fisted proto-punk of the Stooges (album-closing "Vampire Money") and even the cocksure swagger of Guns N' Roses (the triumphant drums and ringing acoustic guitars of "S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W" are a dead ringer for the opening bars of "Paradise City").
Spiritually, Danger Days owes a lot to the work of another great American (and New Jersey) icon: Bruce Springsteen. Because, like a large portion of the Boss' songbook, it deals almost exclusively with the romantic ideals of leaving the small town for the bright lights of the big city, magical girls with life-affirming powers and about being saved by rock and roll on a Saturday night. At various points throughout, Way declares, "You can run away with me anytime you want" ("Summertime"), "I've got a bulletproof heart/ You've got a hollow-point smile" (to a potential lover on "Bulletproof Heart"), and "When we were young, we used to say/ That you only hear the music when your heart begins to break" ("The Kids From Yesterday"). Brandon Flowers tried to do much the same thing on the Killers' Sam's Town album; the only difference is, My Chem pull it off. Because they've got the balls to. Because they're an American rock-and-roll machine.
And yes, dealing with American archetypes is pretty easy, but Danger Days isn't a complex album: It's about the fast and loose joy of rock and roll played very loudly, the spiritual release of shouting along to your favorite song, the swagger of gunslingers and motorcycle gangs and sh---hot guitar solos. There's no room for sadness or social complexities. It is loud, brash, unafraid and unapologetic, a four-on-the-floor, pedal-to-the-metal, bullets-in-the-chamber, bugs-on-the-windshield thrill ride. And, in a lot of ways, it's the most American rock album in recent memory. Which is probably what MCR set out to do when they made it (the second time around). Of course, they had to dye their hair and fast-forward to the year 2019 to do it, but given their past, I'd expect nothing less. "We're an American band," they seem to be shouting, echoing the sentiments of Grand Funk Railroad. "From the future."

Source

Alt Press 08-10-10

Citation :

Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys from My Chemical Romance
by Jonah Bayer

It should come as no surprise that My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way has spent much of the past three years working on his graphic novel series The Umbrella Academy. Because his band’s fourth full-length, Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys, is literally the sonic equivalent of a comic book. Narrated by the self-described “surgeon/proctor/helicopter” Doctor Death-Defying, the 15-track album is as visceral as the superhero wannabes of Kick-Ass and a vast sonic departure for the band. It’s truly hard to believe this is the same act who exploded onto the scene six years ago with the emo anthem, “I’m Not Okay (I Promise).”

While My Chemical Romance’s former peers have either embraced conceptual introspection (Thursday) or retreated from the spotlight altogether (Brand New), on Danger Days, MCR have fully followed their own larger-than-life creative vision. If nothing else, it’s admirable to see a band in their situation following their muse without worrying about pissing off diehard fans in the process. After a brief introduction by Dr. D (“Look Alive, Sunshine”), the album officially opens with the Bowie-inflected first single, “Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na),” a raucous track that’s got all the clichéd makings of a bombastic rock song: lyrics about doing drugs, harmonizing guitars and a tapping guitar solo. The only real surprising thing in this musical equation is the way MCR manage to make these elements their own. Overall, Danger Days seems to alternate between sweat-fueled ragers and power ballads such as “Bulletproof Heart,” which sets the stage for an apocalyptic love story that’s also teeming with youthful nostalgia. The looking-back vibe is further extended as Way croons about how “the pigs are after me” over a stripped-down riff that everyone has heard a million times before, yet still manages to sound fresh. That song, like much of the album, is aided by unbelievable axe-work courtesy of Ray Toro, whose tasteful shredding finally gets a chance to take its rightful share of the spotlight on Danger Days.

Additional highlights on the album include the impossibly catchy self-help anthem “Save Yourself, I’ll Hold Them Back,” (the equivalent of Survivor’s “Eye Of The Tiger” for future goth warriors of the world) and the unexpected ballad “Summertime,” which would fit nicely on lite-rock radio formats, the antithesis of the album’s more upbeat fare. And when MCR do get close to plagiarism—as they do on the shambolic Stooges-aping closer “Vampire Money”—Way takes a note from the Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon and acknowledges it by quoting Iggy Pop’s iconic “street walkin’ cheetah” reference before the listener can. Well played, sir.

That’s not to say that this post-modern thriller doesn’t have a few duds—most notably the syncopated hi-hat dance experiment “Planetary (GO!)” and the way-too-close-to-Red-Hot-Chili-Peppers-territory “DESTROYA”—but with a record as bold and ambitious as Danger Days, you can expect a few casualties (and a lot of sound effects). Ultimately, the grandiosity that MCR built their name upon (cf. “Helena”) is still here, just re-contextualized on upbeat numbers like “The Only Hope For Me Is You,” which are slightly harder to get your head around initially, but far more fulfilling in the end.

That last statement is also true about the disc as a whole. Most people expected My Chemical Romance to go the way of Green Day, choosing instead to hedge their bets and deliver The Blacker Parade. Fortunately with Danger Days, MCR havefar more in common with the Flaming Lips than anyone currently operating in any “punk” scene. How they were able to construct an entire multi-layered universe (sonically, lyrically and with narration!) for listeners to get lost in—while writing some of the strongest and catchiest songs of their career—is anyone’s guess. For the cookie-cutter bands and haters out there, that’s what we call sweet revenge.

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