My Chemical Romance’s Conventional Weaponsseries has finally been released in its entirety with the release of the final single, Number Five. These singles have provided an interesting look at where MCR stands as a band now because of the nature of all the releases. One can look at the band’s new music in terms of individual song, in terms of the two-song singles, or in terms of the whole Conventional Weapons project. I think each song has a different role in each of these ways of listening to MCR’s new music, and Number Five certainly, I feel, fulfills the caboose role in ending Conventional Weapons.
Number Five’s A-track is “Surrender the Night”,is lyrically great but musically unremarkable. While sounding like the quintessential MCR song, it lacks I think something remarkable to make it go from being a good song to being fan-fuckin-tastic. That isn’t to say “Surrender the Night” is bad, just uninteresting. “Burn Bright”, Number Five’s B track, is more interesting than “Surrender the Night”, for sure, but it still seems dampened. For whatever reason, both songs on Number Five seem to have everything that a great MCR song needs but are somehow held back. While listening to Burn Bright, the moments – especially in the middle of the chorus –where I was expecting a mind exploding barrage of impressive lyrics and music just didn’t happen and left me feeling a bit let down.
That being said, Number Five does have a finality to it that, as I said before, serves as a proper ending to Conventional Weapons. That, however, is me looking at Conventional Weapons as a whole album. When looking at Number Five as a single it just doesn’t compare to Number One or Number Two. At least, since this series of new songs has been released, My Chemical Romance fans can turn their attention to more important matters like, of course, TOUR DATES! There was just a ton of new music released so tour should be next, right? Please MCR. Say I’m right, because I am, along with the rest of your fans, slowly descending into My Chemical Romance withdrawal