Aug 31

Aug 31 My Chemical Romance - I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love

My Chemical Romance
I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love
Release Date: July 23rd, 2022
Label: Eyeball

Review by Jared Stossel

In the song “Skylines and Turnstiles”, Gerard Way sings (on the verge of screaming) the following lyrics: “And after seeing what we saw/Can we still reclaim our innocence?/And if the world needs something better/Let’s give them one more reason now/This broken city sky like butane on my skin”. This is the first song that was ever written for My Chemical Romance, the New Jersey-based rock act that was born in a post-9/11 world. Way was traveling on a ferry to New York when he witnessed the Twin Towers collapse on September 11th, 2001. It was a moment that changed the world, and a moment that changed the way in which we all viewed the world. Way, who was working as an intern for Cartoon Network after graduating from the School of Visual Arts in New York City two years prior, decided that he needed to take a different path. “Skyline and Turnstiles” is not just the band’s first song, but it is the centerpiece of the album, the thesis statement for the band, and a stark reflection of the generation that I was raised in. How do we come back from this? What is the meaning of it all? Is there something greater out there?

Way took this moment to heart, realizing that he wanted to give his longtime dream of being in a band one more shot. Recruiting drummer Matt Pelissier, the two would go on to write the beginnings of what would become one of the most important bands in the history of emo. The emo genre had far different origins; this isn’t Sunny Day Real Estate or American Football. But the name My Chemical Romance is synonymous with the term, and the band’s debut album I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, serves as their calling card, an introduction to everything they were and everything they were going to be.

On the surface, Bullets can be viewed as a stunning debut from a band that had been together for only less than a year, being recorded in May of 2002 and released two months later. At its core, Bullets is a concept album featuring characters that will follow the band throughout the next several years. It has a far looser storyline than the albums that would follow (like 2004’s Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge or 2006’s The Black Parade) but the foundational elements of the band can be found all over their debut. An instrumental flamenco guitar riff, fuzzy and inaudible at times, opens the album in a song titled “Romance”. The static on the radio builds before we meet My Chemical Romance for the first time, thrilling as ever, on “Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough For The Two of Us”, a blistering post-hardcore track that summarizes the end of a relationship.

“Vampires Will Never Hurt You” begins in a subtle fashion, a song that uses vampires and “the undead” as a metaphor for those who feed off the well-being and kindness of others (at least, that’s how I’ve interpreted it). A gentle bass line from Mikey Way adds to the tension, complementing Pelissier’s kick pattern before building into an explosive chorus. The band’s fascination with horror is on display here, every member of the band a fan of theatrical heavy metal and B-horror movies. “Early Sunsets Over Monroeville” was inspired by George A. Romero’s fantastic Dawn of the Dead, a sequel to his titular Night of the Living Dead. Both movies defined the zombie sub-genre of horror films, while simultaneously tackling themes of race, consumerism, and humanity. Similarly, My Chemical Romance use these songs and the metaphors within them to tackle the ideas of existentialism (“Cubicles”, “Skylines and Turnstiles”), depression (“Headfirst for Halos”), and love (“This Is The Best Day Ever”).

The two most theatrical entries on Bullets come in the form of “Drowning Lessons” and “Demolition Lovers”. The former incorporates elements of punk and post-hardcore as Way sings his way through lyrics like “We can wash down this engagement ring/With poison and kerosene/We’ll laugh, as we die/And we’ll celebrate the end of things with cheap champagne”. This is one of the album’s tracks that follows the concept storyline, about two Bonnie and Clyde-esque lovers on the run, eventually culminating in their deaths in the album’s final track. The closing number is an epic conclusion that only signifies what’s to come from this band. Elements of grandiosity can be found throughout “Demolition Lovers”, as it builds and swells, only to come back down, changing tempo numerous times throughout. The beginnings of The Black Parade can be found here. The couple gets gunned down, as the song speeds towards it end with lyrics like “And as we’re touching hands, and as we’re falling down/And in this pool of blood, and as we’re falling down/I’ll see your eyes, and in this pool of blood/I’ll meet your eyes, I mean this forever”. It ends abruptly.

More ambitious than your traditional post-hardcore act, taking cues from horror-punk acts like The Misfits, the debut album from My Chemical Romance is an excellent first entry, one from a band that are about to have the world placed at their fingertips, only within a matter of months. Within a year, Revenge would become imminent.