My Chemical Romance - Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys

Ok, full disclosure: I'm not a MCR fan. As far as I understand it, this is a band which makes music exclusively for teenage emos who look like one of the puppets from Fraggle Rock given a goth make-over. I can't honestly say I've given them much time before, but I'm vaguely aware of them being a massively successful band and, of course, the weaker of my brain's neurons failed to ignore the typically hysterical Daily Mail headline from a few years ago which splashed a picture of the goth girl from Hollyoaks across the pages and wittered about MCR being responsible for a generation of self-harming suicide babies. So you can probably see why I, who as a teenager committed every Smiths' lyric to memory, singularly failed to see MCR's appeal. However, keeping a recent NME cover and general murmurings of praise from the Guardian in mind, I decided to give their fourth album, the ludicrously named Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, a cautious listen.

It starts, somewhat unexpectedly, with what sounds like a hip hop radio DJ delivering a doom-laden wakeup call over curdled synth and white noise. This brief intro is called 'Look Alive, Sunshine' and, with its lines about being "louder than God's revolver and twice as shiny", contains the first of many, many gun references. It's a suitably ominous, state-of-the-nation address for what will basically turn out to be Green Day's American Idiot for younger brothers and sisters. There are another two similar announcements at the middle and end of the album, obviously designed to tip the hat to classic gang warfare film The Warriors. This very loosely ties the record together thematically and makes me like MCR a little more than I would otherwise. Mainly, however, it makes me want to re-watch The Warriors. One can only hope it will lead some MCR fans to check out what may very well be the greatest film ever made.

The staggeringly titled single 'Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)' is punk in that brash, utterly obvious way which American rock acts have spent the last decade perfecting. It's followed by 'Bulletproof Heart' which, as the title suggests, revolves entirely around gun/bullet/'going down in a blaze of glory' imagery. Later on, 'Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back' retreads the exact same tropes. In fact, with its crunching monster riffs and 'death or glory' lyrics it might as well be the same song. What with gun-related teenage deaths being so high in the US, you have to question MCR's taste levels a little here but, then again, most great American music , from Guns n' Roses to NWA, relies on glorying the morally dubious. Underneath the radio-friendly bombast, there's a Springsteen-esque desperation, a mall rat desire for escape at all costs which is surely completely phoney and exploitative coming from these rich and successful young men. But, again, this isn't a particularly new contradiction, even if the following track, the excremental rock ballad 'SING', exhorts someone to "sing it from the heart".

MCR seem to be at their best when they shake free the need to fulfil their audience's perception of them as super-serious young men. 'Planetary (GO!)' is a funny, squelchy pop-punk tune which is more about the sheer joy of bouncing around then the crushing existential angst of being a bored teen from a comfortably well-off family. It's sure to set mosh pits alight and should be a single. Similarly, 'Party Poison' starts with a yelling Japanese girl and then evolves into the kind of itchy, convulsing garage rock number The Hives knock out in their sleep. These are the album's best, least complicated moments.

Elsewhere, every song reaches for an unsustainable peak of emotion which is halfway between alienated rage and anthemic, American dream affirmation. It's a little confusing to an outsider but it seems this is MCR great triumph: possibly more than any band before them, they've turned being an insular loser into an achievement of self-realisation. Their music lacks the nihilistic hunger of G n' R, the genuine horror at looming adulthood and responsibility that Nirvana tapped into, the fetishistic glorification of perversity that was Marilyn Manson's stock-in-trade. Instead, MCR present and reflect a world of forever-teens, undisturbed by real life complications like jobs, school or adult relationships, unhindered from focussing completely on their creamy, pampered misery. Only 'The Kids from Yesterday' acknowledges that such a state can't last but fails to identify what such relentlessly solipsistic beings might usefully evolve into. The message seems to be: die young because - trust us successful rock stars with our shameless brand iconography -, the adulthood you have no experience of is a lousy and hollow thing and you don't want it.

This leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. MCR's view of the modern world is staunchly apolitical, unengaged or unconcerned with reality at a fundamental level. Several tracks make reference to "pigs" and other authority figures, and in this respect Danger Days... doesn't differ greatly from the vicarious thrill provided to suburban teens by macho, hyper-aggressive hip hop stars such as 50 Cent. On the other hand, the relentlessly thick 'Fiddy' can at least lay claim to having experienced gang culture and extreme poverty firsthand; MCR's dystopian world-view is pure cartoon but delivered with so much seriousness it's like they've mistaken a Tom and Jerry caper for The Wire.

However, MCR do clearly provide some solace, support and plain old rock 'n' roll excitement to adolescents the world over, many of whom no doubt encounter genuine problems like depression and parental divorce. Who am I to judge where they get their affirmation from? No doubt most of them will grow out of it the same way I grew out of listening to 'I Know It's Over' on repeat. In a decade's time, who's to say MCR won't be in a similar position to Take That, bringing a little teenage joy to grown up mums and dads? There's more than a little of the boy band hanging around this group, after all. Basically, the bottom line could be this: would you rather kids were listening to MCR or JLS?