Time Capsule: My Chemical Romance, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love

“Honey” is followed by “Vampires Will Never Hurt You,” which matches its essence. With moody, gothic Western guitars, Gerard sings from the perspective of a vampire, used as a metaphor for his mental health struggles. He begs to be taken out with a spike through the heart and pleads for help before it’s too late: “Someone get me to the doctor / Someone get me to a church / Where they can pump this venom gaping hole.” The urgency of Gerard’s words is felt in the closing chorus, as the song accelerates in a pulsating beat. You can feel the emotion coming through Gerard’s wails, and that’s perhaps because during the day of recording the track, he was dealing with wisdom teeth pain and had the molars taken out. When he arrived at the studio, he was drowsy on painkillers and in no shape to perform, so Saavedra hid his meds and took an unorthodox approach to not waste time: he punched Gerard’s mouth.

This was the first My Chemical Romance song to gain traction online after Thursday shared it on their website. It’s also the track that made Rickly realize that Saavedra was right—these guys had something special that would make them big someday. I wouldn’t have expected a song about being vampires would become the track that has aged the best from Bullets, but it somehow works without feeling gimmicky. It’s funny to think that this song is what most likely led to My Chemical Romance being asked to be part of the Twilight soundtrack, and instead of taking the cash grab, they went on to write the diss track “Vampire Money” for their last album, Danger Days.

“Vampires” isn’t the only song on the album that relies on horror movie-inspired storytelling, but it’s the one that executes it best. “Early Sunsets Over Monroeville,” which takes its title from the filming location for Dawn of the Dead, shows a gentler side to My Chemical Romance, as an impassioned punk ballad that finds Gerard playing the role of a zombie apocalypse survivor who has to kill his zombie girlfriend. While Rickly’s advice to Gerard about using comic book tropes in his music helped Gerard find his voice as a songwriter, the bandleader was too overreliant on those existing references, without creating original stories. Eventually, Gerard mastered the art of storytelling through music five years later for The Black Parade.

Frontloading the album with two of its best songs, “Honey” and “Vampires,” only accentuates the flaws in My Chemical Romance’s early music. “Drowning Lessons,” “This Is the Best Day Ever,” and “Cubicles” are pretty forgettable when stacked against the rest of My Chemical Romance’s songs, with generic pop punk riffs that feel like they’re trying to emulate Thursday rather than tap into the distinctive sound they found in “Honey” and “Vampires.” And while “Our Lady of Sorrows” heads in the right direction, with chugging metal guitars and theatrical vocals, we see My Chemical Romance handle this direction better on Three Cheers‘ “Hang ‘Em High.”

That’s not to say there aren’t any standouts beyond the two opening tracks. “Headfirst for Halos,” which follows “Our Lady of Sorrows,” is vibrant, with glam rock riffs and drums contrasting the dark, tongue-in-cheek lyrics about Gerard’s drug dependency amid being clinically depressed: “Well let’s go back to the middle of the day that starts it all / I can’t begin to let you know just what I’m feeling / And now, the red ones make me fly / And the blue ones help me fall / And I think I’ll blow my brains against the ceiling.”

It’s a striking contrast to have “Halos” come right before “Skylines and Turnstiles,” Gerard’s song about the harrowing experience of watching people die in the horrific attack. “Skylines” isn’t one of the best tracks sonically, but it’s not among the weakest. It stands out with its raw, emotional lyrics, as Gerard grapples with the complex emotions that come after a tragedy, which has made those like himself who were already struggling with their mental health feel even more downcast. “And after seeing what we saw / Can we still reclaim our innocence? / And if the world needs something better / Let’s give them one more reason now,” Gerard declares, sharing his mission statement for My Chemical Romance.

The album closes with “Demolition Lovers,” a track that, alongside “Honey” and “Vampires,” completes the trifecta of the songs that put My Chemical Romance on the map as a band to watch. It’s a punk ballad that takes various turns during its 6-minute runtime, with Gerard declaring his dedication to stand till eternity with his partner in crime, even as they meet their demise with a rain of bullets. At its start, Gerard’s vocals are at their softest, coming through as a ghostly whisper, but as the song picks up the pace, the frontman’s voice intensifies in loudness until reaching a screamo screech. But as the song reaches an abrupt halt at the halfway mark, it restarts with the same pattern.

I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love isn’t perfect. It was a learning curve for My Chemical Romance, as they dealt with a bassist who was just learning to play bass, a second guitarist who joined a band last minute without having an established relationship with its members, and a drummer who wasn’t taking the gig seriously. But with Gerard’s unwavering motivation to make it work, the band persevered, learning from their weaknesses to turn their following record, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, into a decade-defining masterpiece. While it pales in comparison to its successor, its best moments are so strong that it remains beloved by fans over 20 years later.

Tatiana Tenreyro is Paste‘s associate music editor, based in New York City. You can also find her writing at SPIN, NME, PAPER Magazine, The A.V. Club, and other outlets.