Brendan O`Brien, best known for his work with Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen, is behind the next My Chemical Romance album.
O’Brien and My Chemical Romance have gathered in a Los Angeles studio to start work on the follow-up to the 2006 album The Black Parade.So what will it sound like?
“At this point, the best way to describe the new album is My Chemical Romance being the purest, most distilled version of itself,” singer Gerard Way said in a statement. “No bells and whistles, as the focus has been on melody and songwriting. If it doesn't work in a room with just the five of us, we aren't trying to make it work in the studio with effects and string sections. Making The Black Parade allowed us the departure we needed to see what worked and what didn't, experiment, and add a lot of elements we never would have. Sometimes you need to leave to come back home. To me, it feels like the culmination of everything we have learned as songwriters and players.”
Adds guitarist Ray Toro: “I think the direction of the new album is a perfect mix of what we did on Black Parade and what we did on Revenge. After Black Parade, we were ready for a more aggressive sound, similar to Revenge, but even harder. Because we had toured behind Black Parade for so long, we wanted to do the complete opposite of that this time out, almost kind of de-construct ourselves.”
There is a lot riding on the next album for MCR. The Black Parade debuted at no. 2 and sold around a quarter of a million units in the first week.
“What we’re bringing from Black Parade to the new album is that sense of creative
spark, where anything can feel possible, except distilled into a three minute, 30-second song,” Toro says. “I can say, hands down, this is our best record yet. We’ve gotten even better as songwriters and musicians, and we cannot wait for people to hear what we came up with. It’s all of the best characteristics of the band finally on one record.”
Here’s a short clip of the band in the studio:
