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It makes for a record that's their strongest, most cohesive yet, even if it isn't quite as weird or compelling as it should be given the group's lofty ambitions.
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Alternative PressThe Black Parade is MCR's whole raison d'etre rolled up into one mega-decibel calling card. [Nov 2006, p.179]
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They've created the Sgt. Pepper of screamo.
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These songs contain all the accoutrements of anguish and despair: he sings the words, he screams the words. So why does it all sound so fake?
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"The Black Parade" is a big, fat, obnoxious, difficult, overbaked concept record and it's all the more exciting for it.
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This album is not just the band's most adventurous but also its best.
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It's a compelling record in the same way as Green Day's "American Idiot" was: Each shows a band pushing itself to grow, and succeeding far more than anyone could have reasonably expected.
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What makes "The Black Parade" so exciting isn't anything rock is quite used to.... My Chemical Romance expresses the next generation's quest by redrawing the boundaries of reality itself.
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MojoDespite its bleak outlook, this is a record big on nagging choruses and arm-punching emo punk that--more often than not--aims for the mainstream artery. [Dec 2006, p.110]
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This is such a great, great record for so many reasons.
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This is one to file alongside 'American Idiot', 'Doolittle' and 'Nevermind' on your greatest US rock albums shelf.
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They've succeeded at making a good big-dumb-rock record, but you get the sense they didn't mean for it to be quite this dumb.
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It reeks of a band with ideas above their station.
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For the first time in what seems like a long time, here is an album that is going to be deservedly huge.
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Tight as a unit, and apparently determined to create music that will, in one way or another, appeal to everyone, My Chemical Romance are in danger of forgetting that hooks, riffs, and yes, aggression, are also needed to stay on top of their game.
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Q MagazineFans will be baffled, but this is magnificently deranged stuff. [Nov 2006, p.147]
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The Black Parade... is the best mid-Seventies record of 2006, a rabid, ingenious paraphrasing of echoes and kitsch from rock's golden age of bombast.
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As with many concept albums, the concept itself gets buried beneath the show-off virtuosity, the band's ringing need to not only impress but bedazzle the listener.
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SpinIt's a savage, heartfelt, at times hilarious goth-mosh emopera. [Nov 2006, p.95]
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This is a goofy record of bubblegum punk, with Queen lapping at its edges and enough good tracks to justify the smattering of empty screamfests.
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The most bonkers album of the year, but one of the best.
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Simultaneously brutal and hilarious, and bristling with wake-up-call urgency, “The Black Parade” may prove to be the best rock record of the year.
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Uncut[It] sees them break out of the subculture in spectacular style. [Nov 2006, p.123]
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For all that sonic triumph, the lyrics feel like an empty gesture, sub–Trapper Keeper woe-mongering that'll thrill suburban teens but sounds odd coming from guys old enough to know better.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 708 out of 790
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Mixed: 19 out of 790
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Negative: 63 out of 790
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Nov 26, 2011
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Dec 16, 2011
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willJJul 5, 2009Amazing. Pure genius. The best album of the decade and the best band to emerge in the past twenty years.