My Chemical Romance are back… having disappeared in a puff of somewhat over conceptualised and processed within an inch of its life pop rock nearly eight years ago the New Jersey quartet returned to the stage just before Christmas 2019 and have announced a string of shows so far for 2020 including a trio in the UK.

With that in mind I thought I thought I’d go back to the source, when the then quintet from the shadow of New York City first convened and within three months of forming recorded a conceptual blast of post-hardcore that would begin their path to world domination, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love.

I’ll admit when I first heard it, after falling for the band’s poppier singles from their breakout second album, I found this somewhat impenetrable but, as time has gone on, it’s raging and raw passion and energy may make it my favourite in their back catalogue (though it’s still a close call with Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge…)

Produced by Geoff Rickly of Thursday and released through Eyeball records before the band singed to Warners offshoot Reprise (which goes a certain way to explaining why it feels like the missing part of their story sometimes) the album begins with the crackly, mournful, semi-acoustic instrumental Romance.

This leads us into the mood of the record before it launches straight into the dark post-hardcore of the brilliantly named Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough For The Two Of Us (My Chemical Romance have always had a knack for names).

This is followed by, Vampires Will Never Hurt You, a track that has remained a stand out longer than maybe any other on the record, still featuring in their live sets as late as 2011 when it closed a show I attended at Wembley Arena.

Vampires adds a healthy dose of the gothic along with the band’s ever present obsession with horror movies and some suitably graphic imagery doled out along with the goth punk sounds.

As the record goes on Drowning Lessons ups the dark romantic imagery and Our Lady Of Sorrows is a blistering highlight that combines, in an early form, every aspect that went on to make the band’s name, while Headfirst For Halos throws some poppy hooks into the mix even though the song is lyrically as brutal and graphic as they come.

Skylines And Turnstiles stands apart somewhat, which is not surprising as it is, supposedly, the first song frontman and band leader Gerard Way penned after witnessing the terrorist attacks in New York on September 11th 2001, the catalyst for him to start the band.

It provides a terrific evocation of the feelings of many following that event who, while not directly effected by personal loss, were in some way effected by it in a broader sense.

That it does this in a vulnerable, emotional and entirely unpolitical way remains refreshing as it isn’t focussed on seeking explanations, blame and recrimination which are more often the subjects of music inspired by the event.

Early Sunsets Over Monroeville takes us back to the horror movie aesthetics being a brutal but heartfelt love song inspired by George A. Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead before the sheer punk rock blast of This Is The Best Day Ever that is an early hint at their later obsession with hospitals seen on The Black Parade.

Cubicles is another track that seems to stand apart from the rest coming, as it does, from a more relatable, grown up, real world situation and exploring not just the isolation of the modern office but a kind of lost and unrequited romance in that setting.

The album is rounded off back in more fanciful territory with the comparatively epic (by general punk rock standards) Demolition Lovers, a tale of desperate brutal romance evoking something of a goth punk Bonnie & Clyde and more than ever Gerard’s visual flair comes to the fore (not surprising from a sometime cartoonist and comic book writer).

This ends the records on a high while also providing a hint of what was to come, not just on follow up Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge that, at points, directly seems to continue this tale, but also the bigger concepts of The Black Parade and Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys.

Much has been made of the concept of this album and it telling the tale of a pair of doomed but star crossed lovers and, while there are hints and suggestions of this, it is far from a complete story in this regard.

More for me the concept lies in what the title of the opening instrumental suggests — that this is about romance, typically the kind of dark and doomed romance always popular in anything tagged with by the words goth and while loose threads do link some of the songs it is this mood and feeling that is more conceptual than a direct story for me.

The sound of the album is a raw and harsh one in comparison to what was to come fitting in far more with post-hardcore and punk, even with hints of screamo, and it captures the band’s live sound far more accurately with an untamed feeling that had calmed down even by the follow-up.

Also interesting to note in the production of the record is that My Chemical Romance were still a four piece at the time of recording with soon to be full them second guitarist and backing vocalist Frank Iero only appearing on two tracks.

It’s often been suggested that his influence in the more screamed lyrics and punk-ish rhythm guitar is what really made the band’s sound work and by the time the album was released he was a firm part of the line up and this sound was entirely complete.

I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love then is something of a landmark album for punk rock and what became termed ’emo’ in the mid-2000s as it took elements of several things laid down before by the likes of AFI and Alkaline Trio (amongst others) and added a feeling and approach that, with a little bit of polish, became as marketable and charitable as any rock music since grunge.

This marked My Chemical Romance out as leaders, if not originators, of a scene that went on to hit such mainstream ‘highs’ as worrying the Daily Mail like few ‘teen crazes’ manage while having albums, singles and music videos that were inescapable for the better part of a decade while the band became synonymous with and cemented a sound, look and style in the public consciousness like few ever manage.