"The Black Parade," a concept album exploring the weighty topics of death and mortality, marks a highly ambitious turn for the heretofore unremarkable group My Chemical Romance [ tickets ], and it wears that ambition on its sleeve.

Like an action movie that compensates for a thin plot with more explosions, this set shows great skill in bombast, and next to none in subtlety. It's a shame, really, because there's plenty of evidence here that My Chemical Romance is a growing, evolving band. The progress is overshadowed, however, by a pedal-to-the-metal mentality treating just about every track as a climax.

In the new, iTunes-driven world, that tack will probably spawn several hit singles beyond "Welcome to the Black Parade," and the album no doubt will sell in droves. But, taken as a whole, it's exhausting. At times, it feels like the group and producer Rob Cavallo are trying to cram the album with every theatrical device that ever occurred to Pink Floyd, Queen, David Bowie, Styx and Meat Loaf, not to mention Green Day.

That said, for every overblown track like "The End" and "Mama" (featuring Liza Minelli!), there's a song like "This is How I Disappear," which works nicely when removed from its context, or the sharp, Kinks-like "Teenagers."

Though My Chemical Romance clearly bit off more than it could chew with "The Black Parade," the group does deserve some credit for giving the stale emo/screamo genre a much-needed kick in the pants. But let's not go overboard with the praise.