My Chemical Romance – The Black Parade
Warner – Out October 2006

I was worried I was too old and out of touch to appreciate the number one album from the East Coast band better known as the Dangerous Teen Cult of Self-Harm. I needn't have worried. More to the point, the Mail shouldn't have worried. All the signs are that the only chemical this black-clad five-piece will be getting romantic with is peroxide. Even then – if singer Gerard's silver fox look is anything to go by – they're more likely to take it out for a candlelit dinner than for a engage in debauched rampant animal sex. Apparently, The Killers' Bandon Flowers branded MCR, without a hint of irony, as ‘dangerous'. But what would you expect from a God-fearing Mormon with a penchant for pink blazers and moustaches? Primary school teachers will be looking up from their registers tomorrow to far more fearsome sights than this bunch. Songs named Dead! (note the exclamation mark and shudder) and Cancer are about as edgy as MCR get, and the scariest thing about The Black Parade is a guest appearance from Liza Minnelli and its obsession with Freddie Mercury's Queen. An album of eminently catchy, anthemic pantomime rock, held together by tight rhymes, whizzing guitars, thumping drums and just a smidge of Boots No.7 eyeshadow. The Black Parade is good, but nothing for the self-appointed moral guardians to get in a sweat over.