We're bringing back our Ten Years On... Feature with a bang this month as we've expanded beyond covering just one album to discuss THREE of the biggest releases from October 2006. We're going to cover each album under three very strict criteria: Quality of the record, it's impact then and it's impact now. If there are any albums you'd like to see us cover in this feature just let us know via Facebook and/or Twitter! So without further ado then, we bring you the first three albums we're covering in this redesigned Feature: My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade, Deftones' Saturday Night Wrist and Trivium's The Crusade.

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My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade

Quality Of The Record

My Chemical Romance were a phenomenon throughout the 00's and were tasked with following up from the excellent Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge when releasing The Black Parade in 2006. As far as the actual Singles are concerned, this is where they absolutely struck gold, Welcome To The Black Parade for example announced My Chemical Romance's new approach with incredible confidence as it was immediately clear that this was a band who were about to launchpad themselves in to a whole new realm of both popularity and quality. Away from the singles, the whole body of work doesn't quite live up to the standard they'd laid down with Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge but that didn't stop this from being one of the stand-out albums of the year. Their maturity as song-writers had a leap forward somewhat, with the whole album centred around a dying character known as "The Patient" who is suffering from cancer. The lyrical content is dark in the fact that the whole album tells the story around the character's death and afterlife - this was a Rock Opera the likes of which hadn't been seen for a generation. Excerpt from our review ten years ago: "... forget what you think you know about My Chemical Romance because the band of self confessed outsiders who seem to be either loved or loathed have done the unthinkable, they have created an album that is so flamboyantly ridiculous in its pomposity and so fantastic in its theatrical delivery, it could quite possibly be the best album of the year." (13/13) - full link here: My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade.

Impact Then

As we touched on in the above, My Chemical Romance truly drove a movement in Rock Music during their active years, to the point where there hasn't really been anything of a similar level since. When the band released The Black Parade, not only was it a change in musical style, but visually this was a band reborn. They picked up huge swathes of fans with Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge but with this new release their fan base became that movement which was such a force in Rock Music for so many years. Truthfully speaking, this is a band who were castigated by so many corners of the Rock world, often dismissing it all as Emo nonsense, but even just on a surface level their music did so much to touch young fans across the world (and even more so with The Black Parade) that there is no denying that you could look across the whole of 2006 and nothing will have had as big an impact on a widespread scale than this album did. The explosion on release allowed the band to catapult in to that 'Headliner' status, doing so most notably at Download Festival in 2007. The response to My Chemical Romance being announced as Download Festival headliners proved far from positive at the time but there is no doubt that they grasped an opportunity which, all things considered, was more than deserved.

Impact Now

So we sit here now ten years later, where does The Black Parade sit now? Well, considering the band caused an absolute ruckus mere weeks ago when cryptic Social Media posts surrounding the album caused genuine hysteria with hopes of a comeback tour, it is pretty safe to say that The Black Parade is still a very important album for so many. Touching again on much of what we've already said above, considering that the band were castigated so heavily by so many at the time, there is no doubt that many likely wish they were still around when you look at some of the 'bands' who have cherry-picked elements of their sound now and frankly bastardised it. The exception to that rule right now are Creeper. The line of influence between My Chemical Romance and the kind of stuff they were doing on The Black Parade with Creeper now is very clear, the latter already exploring new avenues and methods in a bid to become the leading band in their respective scene at the moment - we won't be surprised if they experience the same trajectory as MCR did just ten years ago.




Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist

Quality Of The Record

Deftones' career has almost been defined by how spectacularly they're able to morph their sound to make every album they release a unique stamp in their back catalogue. Looking across their discography, Saturday Night Wrist is actually often considered to be the weakest in the group, but let's be honest this is still a very good record. The slightly more fragmented make up of this album in comparison to their previous output owes itself to strained relationships within the band throughout the lengthy recording process which saw the band going in to the studio on two separate occasions in order to get the album finished. Despite all of this, Saturday Night Wrist is an album which features the likes of Hole In The Earth, Rapture and Mein which featured a guest spot from System Of A Down's Serj Tankian. The band have never been afraid to go completely left-field, but on this album those tracks which leaned that way actually ended up being missteps more than anything - Pink Cellphone for example probably ranks up there as one of the more forgettable Deftones tracks. Overall then, looking across the band's whole back catalogue there is no doubting that this is probably their weakest moment, but you're still not left disappointed upon listening through it. Excerpt from our review ten years ago: "... This change in style isn't something that's out of the ordinary for Deftones though; they've always successfully evolved their sound and moved on which is what makes them such an interesting band, and is how they've managed to stay so relevant and so good for all these years. (11/13)" - full link here: Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist

Impact Then

Considering the album we've discussed previously in the feature, it is difficult to discuss an album in 2006 having as large an impact in the Rock world. Deftones releasing an album has always stirred excitement whenever it happens and this was no different ten years ago. Despite the gap between this and the previous self titled record was only three years, there was a certain degree of intrigue on the release of Saturday Night Wrist due to all of those rumours circulating around apparent issues within the Deftones camp at the time. The band have always bounced up and down festival slots and on this run they sub-headlined to Tool at Download Festival 2006. It seems odd to say it now, but Deftones were actually beginning to drift a bit in this period, with a 'weaker' album and shakier live performances than the band have been part of both before and since this album cycle, the interest and confidence in them was beginning to wane - as mad as that sounds, it was definitely the feeling at the time.

Impact Now

We've not mentioned this fact just yet, but looking across the full Deftones history and not just their studio output, Saturday Night Wrist has actually taken on a whole new level of significance. This album will always be the last studio record to include bassist Chi Cheng who so sadly passed away after a long battle in hospital following a car accident. Unless the band do ever get to a stage where they're comfortable releasing studio recordings from Eros (the album they had been working on just before Chi's accident and passing), Saturday Night Wrist will always be the last Deftones album to feature one of the most important musicians of his generation. You listen back to it now and you perhaps appreciate each monstrous bassline that bit more than you may have at the time. As far as their live sets are concerned, Saturday Night Wrist is an album the band largely avoid these days. The odd set may feature Hole In The Earth but generally speaking it's very rare to catch any of these tracks live anymore. Whilst it's impact now will never be as strong as the records which preceded it, on an emotional level it is such an important piece in the history of the Deftones.




Trivium - The Crusade

Quality Of The Record

This is actually a really difficult one. If you were to rip this album completely away from Trivium's back catalogue and listen to it as a standalone album you'll probably end up leading to the conclusion that this is a pretty damn good Metal record. But because this is Trivium, and this did follow the absolutely mind-blowing Ascendancy, even now you'll listen and scratch your head wondering what on earth happened. Tracks like The Anthem have ended up subject to huge swathes of criticism as this is a band who somehow managed to scrap everything they'd done previously and follow a path led by some of the Metal giants such as Metallica above them. But we stand by the fact that this album still absolutely rips in parts, for all it's faults The Anthem is ridiculous fun and To The Rats is as good a modern day Thrash song as you could possibly hope for. Matt Heafy's vocals remain clean for the vast majority of the album, again in stark contrast to previous output and even looking longer term across albums that followed this it was probably his weakest performance on record. This was a band under overwhelming pressure and it showed in the quality of music.

Impact Then

As far as the impact this album had on Trivium at the time, you have to look at the whole picture of their career up until this point. Ascendancy in name, and ascendancy in the fact that this band had a meteoric rise unlike many of their peers at the time. In one album cycle Trivium made such an exciting impact they were being touted as future festival headliner sized giants. Then came The Crusade. In recent memory we're struggling to think of an album which derailed momentum as much as this one did. At the time it was met with mixed response, and the band did continue to play some huge tours, including The Black Crusade with Machine Head, but there is absolutely no denying that at the time they ended up being largely ridiculed and rejected. Thankfully their talent meant that Shogun helped drag the carcass back to life somewhat two years later, but the damage had sadly been done.

Impact Now

Well considering the negative impact it had at the time, this section almost writes itself. Still very much considered the black sheep of the Trivium discography, there are only really pockets of people who speak truly affectionately about it. It is a shame, because as noted this is a good Metal record, it's just that considering the kind of debilitating impact it had on their career at the time you can only end up thinking in "what if's". The only tracks that land themselves in the live show are To The Rats and more rarely The Anthem which again says a lot.