Album Review: Gerard Way - Hesitant Alien

If you were a teenager in the ‘00s, My Chemical Romance were an important part of your adolescence — whether you kissed their poster before bed or set it on fire.

By the end of the band’s career, they had proven they were much more than a whiny emo band, and instead a theatrically and conceptually enthralled outfit. It was this progression which makes Way’s first full solo effort since the band’s annihilation all the more left-field, with an approach that summons comparisons to dream-pop, punk rock and Weezer.

The album is, at times, purposefully painful: opening track The Bureau leads with dark discords and buried vocals. It’s a sign of things to come: a pop album that is trying a bit too hard to be art. Way is at his best when crafting radio hits: Millions and Maya The Psychic are hook-filled while still musically interesting. Like his rock opera attempts with MCR, Way falls just short. The album’s heavier and noisier moments feel the same, with Way undecided if he wants to accept his pop-rocker fate or not. Essentially, Way’s overestimation of his ability to craft sweeping epics and progressive masterpieces becomes the elephant in the room: Hesitant Alien is a complete, functional and pretty bloody good album, but wears an air of pretension that casts a shadow over ever jingly guitar chord and vocal harmony.

Perhaps Way will bring about a pop renaissance in the vein of Elton John, but not while he thinks he’s Lennon.