It's here and a few minutes later when the breathless 'Juarez' takes over that Way and his new baby truly shine. 'Zero-Zero' gamely picks up the slack, imagining a venom-coated world where Pixies came up with 'Song 2'. They are guilty of saddling Hesitant Alien with a stop-start feel, however. To be fair, both songs boast strong choruses most notably the former's shanty sing-a-long. Nonetheless, you'd take songs like 'Action Cat' and 'No Shows', which masks relatively conventional hooks with further - ahem - alien vocals, over more straight-laced fare like 'Brother' and 'Millions'. That said, there are times, both here and throughout the record, when the layers blur clumsily and you begin to question the mixing process. It's not exactly Alcest territory but it makes for one of the more interesting pop songs of the year. If you struggle with the occasionally-buried vocals, fair enough, it's by design. With his former cohorts no longer around to object, he goes all in, creating a wall of noise that's worth the effort to break through. Way has long had a fascination with fuzz pedals but never found a use for his collection during the My Chemical Romance years.
The superbly-titled 'Action Cat' is an immediate anthem, one that successfully blends pop and shoegaze. In truth, it doesn't really fit what follows. 'Bureau' isn't much of a song, but it's the closest Hesitant Alien comes to a musical number. Way hollers as guitars and drums clang around him but you picture those answering his signal (played out eventually to the sound of a UK ringing tone) stepping up in expertly-choreographed time, their practiced scowls buried under glitter. A call to arms, though a fairly tame one. 'Bureau' makes for a somewhat languid opener. Instead, Way keeps things simple and spiky. Given past ostentatious exploits, you'd be forgiven for expecting Hesitant Alien to paint in especially broad strokes, but the nods are often quite subtle and at no point does the narrative make way for Phil Daniels-esque caricatures. In his quest to alter the current scene, Way has attempted to tap into and resurrect, of all things, Britpop. If anything, his first solitary missive registers as much as a tribute to influences as it does a focused reboot. Though Way is at his most engaged in years, there's no major reinvention here. Distortion is employed as its own instrument. Pageantry is retained, as are pop sensibilities. It's quite the bold statement, one made all the more curious when it becomes apparent that this record could easily fall under the My Chemical Romance banner.
Now 38-years-old, Way has spoken of wanting 'to change the landscape of music a bit' with debut solo effort Hesitant Alien. His band would hang on a little longer but they were spent as a creative force. Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, a middling album lacking the ambition and invention of previous work, exhausted him. The requisite marks were hit but the guy looked tired.
When I saw him onstage at a festival in 2011, he was going through the motions beneath a shock of pink hair and an overcast sky. Whether you marched in step with My Chemical Romance's Black Parade or scoffed from afar at its merrily melancholic pomp and circumstance, you must credit Gerard Way for committing so relentlessly to the part.Īs MCR wound down, Way cut a curious figure.
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