My Chemical Romance's New Song Is a Daring Doomsday Delight

How dare My Chemical Romance release a new song without telling anyone? "The Foundations Of Decay" is the band's first in eight long, grueling years, believe it or not.

And as its global reunion tour approaches, one of the great emo rock bands of the century teases us with this piece of delectable doomsday metal that's daringly reflective, soberingly honest, and just downright punk. 

It's hard not to get nostalgic about the whole song (that's what comeback songs do, after all). The track opens with a ghoulishly wicked static sound that should make for quite the arena rock experience live. In the intro, we hear Gerard Way grappling with the band's legacy with lines such as "see the man who stands upon the hill" and "he dreams of all the battles won."

We also sense the struggle of middle-age oblivion throughout the track. Way reconciles passion, growing old, and days of megahits long gone. In the pre-chorus, we even get some semblance of submission (not for long) with "and so tired with age/He turns the page...Submit itself to gravity."

When we arrive at the chorus, we get the nihilistic reckoning of a fading career in full bloom. It starts with "Let our bodies lay while our hearts will stay" and ends with "may your ashes feed the river in the morning rays/And as the vermin crawls... We lay in the foundations of decay."

But this shouldn't take away from the edgy optimism of the whole thing. Lines like "let our blood invade if I die in pain/And if, by his own hand, his spirit flies/Take his body as a relic to be canonized, now" signal a battlecry against the desolation—a relentless defiance that defines the entire song.

By the end of it, we hear Way softly telling us that “it comforts me much more to lay in the foundations of decay.” He tells us that "we are free" in the breakdown, as well.

Once his nihilism transforms from passive to active, he just screams, “Get up, coward!”

"The Foundations Of Decay" seems like a My Chemical Romance retrospective in many ways. From the screeches of its first album I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love to the solos of The Black Parade and the exuberance of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, the track practically memorializes the old MCR. THe band even left some crumbs throughout the song that fans should enjoy munching on, too, like a 9/11 reference, which is the event that was said to trigger the band's formation.

Through it all, the song is ultimately one big question: "Do we have anything left after everything?" To which we should unanimously reply, "hell yeah."

"The Foundations Of Decay" has My Chemical Romance bursting out of its hiatus with a fiery vengeance. It is a rediscovery of sorts for fans, both old and new, and for themselves, too. Here, the band isn't burdened by its own mythos. In a sense, it's an ode to who they were and, hopefully, an introduction to a triumphant, glorious rebirth.