My Chemical Romance - Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys
My Chemical Romance
Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys
Release Date: November 22nd, 2010
Label: Reprise
Review by Jared Stossel
For a long time, nothing was ever simple when it came to My Chemical Romance. Every album was a stage play brought to life against the tapestry of clubs, theaters, and eventual arenas as the New Jersey act amassed swaths of fans and more success than they ever could have imagined. After the band’s initial break-up in 2013, more information came to light as fans learned that 2006’s The Black Parade was (technically) supposed to be the band’s last hurrah, their final ride out into the sunset as the credits rolled across the screen. The band was emotionally and physically exhausted, and vocalist Gerard Way felt that he had said everything that he’d wanted to say after the band’s most extensive world tour to date. The success of The Black Parade catapulted them into the stratosphere, forever etching their names amongst mainstream rock royalty, a result far beyond what a few guys from the Garden State believed would happen after playing their first show in a dive bar, donned in fake blood-spattered shirts only five years prior.
As someone who has struggled with anxiety and depression, I’ve come to learn that if you don’t take a moment to stop and learn your limits, your mind is going to eventually make you stop, whether you want to or not. Way felt that the pressure of living up to expectations, the reintroduction of old habits, and the lack of rest were going to lead to the eventual downfall of the band, thus leading them to announce their breakup back in 2013. Even though Way believed Parade was technically supposed to be their curtain call, the band pushed forward and geared up to make another album. Despite keeping their feet on the gas pedal as the tank was getting dangerously low, My Chemical Romance released Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, a brilliant explosion of Technicolor music and visuals set in the desert amidst the end of the world. That big ball of light in the sky is shining down on everything in its path, as ray gun shootouts, fast cars, and a rag-tag group of supposed antiheroes – known as the Killjoys – make their way through the desert as they work to take down the mega corporation Better Living Industries.
If this sounds like something out of a comic book, it is; Way constructed an entire world from scratch prior to the release and marketing of Danger Days, and it is the antithesis of The Black Parade. Despite themes dealing with the end of the world, the universe built within the Danger Days album is inherently bright, a stark contrast to the cancer-inflicted darkness that resides within the operatic Parade. A pirate radio DJ – Dr. Death Defying (voiced by Steve Montano) – broadcasts from the outskirts of the fictional Battery City, “bumpin’ out the slaughter-matic sounds to keep you alive”. As he builds up into the album’s lead single, “Na Na Na” (one of their best songs to date), it feels like watching the mild-mannered Bruce Banner transform into The Incredible Hulk. As the pick slides across the guitar strings, adrenaline fills our veins, our pupils begin to shrink, and then…we’re off into a brazen, high-speed adventure as the band delivers a treatise on the perils of modern American consumerism.
My Chemical Romance does an incredible job of sucking the audience into the world that lies within Danger Days. The characters are brought to life as we listen, with lyrics like “All the way in Battery City, little children raise their open filthy palms like tiny daggers up to heaven”. The opening track feels more akin to the soundtrack that would accompany a frantic car chase along a desert road; Ray Toro’s guitar solo serves as the hero’s ammunition. “Bulletproof Heart” feels like one of MCR’s more hopeful offerings, the Killjoys having won the battle as they cruise back to the headquarters. Way seems effectually confident on “Bulletproof Heart”, ready to take on the world (“Gravity don’t mean too much too me/I’m who I’ve got to be/These pigs are after me, after you”). The anthemic “SING” – one of the only other radio singles from the Danger Days cycle – follows. It’s unlike any other song the band has recorded, switching tone and key throughout as the four-piece delivers one of their most politically charged songs to date.
“Planetary (GO!)” may be one of my favorite tracks the band has ever created, a sonic recreation of a dance party at the end of the world. Guitarists Toro and Frank Iero trade riffs with one another in an upbeat manner, as Mikey Way delivers a funk-driven bass line that accentuates every vocal delivery. The track is followed up with “The Only Hope For Me Is You”, a prodigious entry in the band’s catalog and one of their most inspiring, what feels to be a love song that could double as a thank you to their dedicated fan base (“If that’s the best that I could be?/Than I’d be another memory/Can I be the only hope for you? Because you’re the only hope for me”). The hopefulness fades out as Dr. Death Defying returns to provide an update; two of the Killjoys got “exterminated” in an altercation that went “all Costa Rica”; the theatrical aspect of Danger Days includes a vernacular unique to the world of Battery City, conjured up by Way himself.
At the supplication of Dr. Death, the traffic report is delivered along with another course of adrenaline as we head into “Party Poison”, a frenetic song that feels like it could go off the rails at any moment. Toro shreds across the fretboard as if possessed, the band delivering an electrifying performance. Perhaps the best moment of Danger Days comes in the Western-influenced “Save Yourself, I’ll Hold Them Back”. If you’re a casual listener, evocations of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” are present before culminating in a truly epic rock track. If you’re following the story, our heroes are in the fight of their lives as they charge through the desert to destroy the evil corporations. “S/C/AR/E/C/R/O/W” is a frolicking, lackadaisical entry, slightly psychedelic in nature as the band saunter through a song that feels more like something off of a later Beatles album than anything from the sphere of emo and post-hardcore. This leads into “Summertime”, a beautiful recording that feels as close to sounding like The Cure as the band will ever get.
One of the final tracks of the album, “DESTROYA”, has one of the odder openings of their catalog, a tribal drum rhythm building up before the band kicks in with the punk spirit they’ve channeled throughout all of their work. Way’s vocals are pushed to their breaking point, filtered through a variety of effects modules as the band power through in a feverish manner. The penultimate track, “The Kids From Yesterday”, is one of the most emotional songs on Danger Days, and it’s become one of the band’s go-to tracks for concluding their live shows. Its chorus is soaring in nature, somewhat of a farewell, as if the band knew that there was a chance this could have been the end (“Remember this could be the last of all the rides we take/So hold on tight and don’t look back/We don’t care about the message or the rules they make/I’ll find you when the sun goes black”).
It would have been a perfect conclusion, but the band manage to produce one more surprise before Danger Days ends. From somewhere on the outskirts of the city, Dr. Death says goodnight, ending his broadcast with a tightly-compressed version of The Star Spangled Banner. If you have the speakers turned all the way up (like I did the first time I listened to it), the final note will shock you as the volume increases by a factor of five, jolting you awake as My Chemical Romance launch into their concluding track, “Vampire Money”. It’s a song that finds the band bursting at the seams, channeling something more akin to Little Richard than, say, Thursday. The track was spawned in the aftermath of multiple requests for the band to (yes, seriously) put their music on the soundtrack for any of the films in the Twilight saga. Both tongue-in-cheek and serious about who they are, the song ends with a literal explosion, an atom bomb detonating somewhere in the vast landscape as the journey of My Chemical Romance comes to a temporary conclusion.
While this isn’t as cohesive an album as their predecessors, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys is an impressive collection of songs that has spawned some truly incredible tracks. The inclusion of a Danger Days track in the band’s set always makes for a memorable scene. The rallying cry of “Na Na Na” still invokes a chaotic response, and songs like “SING” and “The Kids From Yesterday” are still as moving and poetic as they were when the album hit the record shelves over a decade ago. A lot has changed since then, and thankfully, My Chemical Romance took the time that they needed to regroup, recharge, and come back stronger than ever. Even so, Danger Days is a powerful reminder that even when things seem dark, even when you think you can’t go any further, you are more capable and stronger than you might think you are.
We don’t know what the future holds for the music of My Chemical Romance. Since reuniting, the band has unveiled one song, “The Foundations of Decay”, which has acted as the first entry in every live performance since the band kicked off their reunion tour earlier this year. I’m not expecting the chaos-powered theatrical frivolity that comprised the material on Three Cheers or The Black Parade; I’m anticipating great new music, a new chapter, and some form of a new story that will be added to this band’s already pristine collection of music. Next week, as of writing this, the band will take the stage in Oakland, CA for the first time since 2007. To paraphrase Mikey Way from “Vampire Money”, we’re fuckin’ ready.
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