Twenty years ago (which scarily enough for someone of my vintage was 2004) the word emo was really only known a few and stood for a brand of music rooted in the American style of hardcore punk but with an added ‘emotional’ edge to its content, however the next few years would change that as an explosion of new, young bands from both sides of the Atlantic came to embody a slightly reworked definition of the word and, arguably, leading the charge were New Jersey five-piece, My Chemical Romance and their MTV bothering second album, Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge.
I’ve written here in the past about both their preceding debut album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, and their world beating mainstream breakthrough The Black Parade, but this was the record that introduced me and many others to their black and red clad, eyeliner sporting, ways.
Following the raw, unfiltered, explosion that made up their debut things here start, initially at least, in somewhat restrained form with a song dedicated to Gerard (vocals) and Mikey (bass) Way’s grandmother, Helena, but even in its opening moments you can hear the energy bubbling away just beneath the surface in both the elder Way brother’s voice and the accompanying music.
Soon, volcano like, this bursts forth in the way only this band ever quite seemed to manage, balancing a kind of clarity of emotional turmoil with songs that made teenagers (and the slightly older) want to sing along and pour their hearts out too – and that’s only track one.
Across the album, the band (on record made up of the Way Brothers, Ray Toro, Matt Pellisier and Frank Iero, but with Bob Bryan replacing Pellisier on drums by the time it came to touring and promoting) continue the loosely conceptual theme they established on their first full length and would go more in depth with on later releases – in this case again following a pair of lovers on what feels like a From Dusk Til Dawn style road trip, hinted at on the CD booklet by the phrase ‘The story of a man, a woman, and the corpses of a thousand evil men…’
Much like on Bullets though the concept isn’t a crucial facet of the album like they would become.
While the main singles from Three Cheers… (Helena, I’m Not Okay (I Promise) and Ghost Of You) add something of a more pop-y aspect to the band’s previously established post-hardcore, ‘screamo’, sound – and this exists generally across the album as well – the salvo of tracks that follow the goth-ier tones of Helena show the band haven’t lost their raw edge.
It’s on these (Give ‘Em Hell Kid, To The End and You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison) that the idea of the lovers really starts to come out but, in a stroke of genius that I think meant a lot to fans at the time and despite the words on the sleeve, there never seems to be a specificity of gender making it at once more accessible and more open, particularly for young people exploring and finding their way in the world.
Along with this the goth notion of ‘sex and death’ is very clearly present throughout which just adds to the same overall tone and I’m sure this record led to many ‘awakenings’ in its listeners over the years.
With I’m Not Okay feeling today like a custom build crossover hit, it still retains more of the edge than I’d recalled while also being a clear clarion call to disaffected, misfit, youth before the somewhat overwrought but almost ballad like Ghost Of You shows a new side to the band that would inform their work to come.
From there it’s another artillery like onslaught of the more ‘screamo’ inflected kind with The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You and Thank You For The Venom, but, what sets this apart from much of the other music given that much misunderstood generic tag at the time, is the sense of innate theatricality that Gerard in particular but the band as a whole bring to it.
While they certainly embraced it more wholeheartedly on The Black Parade the sense of performance the band brought to live shows is evident on the review with characters and voices coming across in the vocals and, while Frank’s guitars tend to keep the punk side strong, Ray increasingly adds solos that his love of classic metal and even Queen.
Hang ‘Em High then adds a hint of the western to proceedings, further enforcing that From Dusk Til Dawn vibe before the fabulously titled It’s Not A Fashion Statement, It’s A Fucking Deathwish provides one of the records under sung highlights that brings out something else that sets the band apart somewhat, that being the hints to their being raised Catholic, which goes some way to explaining a lot of the emotions that come through.
Cemetery Drive slows things down and gives us something of a breather that’s reminiscent of Bullets’ Demolition Lovers before the final blast of I Never Told You What I Do For A Living which brings things a suitably brutal and bloody end, both musically and thematically.
The tours that followed to promote the album only served to further cement the band’s place at the head of the developing emo revolution and set the scene for where they would go next but now, twenty years on, Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge remains as listenable as ever capturing a moment between underground prominence and world beating mainstream success brilliantly and being, arguably, the highpoint of My Chemical Romance’s storied career.
Tommy Girard 