Fourth album a defining moment for My Chemical Romance

My Chemical Romance is readying their fourth album culling influences from The Stooges and MC5 to Judas Priest and director Ridley Scott.

The New Jersey natives are working in L.A. with Springsteen producer, Brendan O'Brien following up their 2006 hit “The Black Parade” hoping for a more stripped down sound. During two summertime performances at the The Roxy Theater, the band unveiled three new songs from their upcoming album during the shows titled, “Death Before Disco,” “Kiss the Ring,” and “The Drugs.”

Singer Gerard Way was excited to discuss the new album with Rolling Stone recently saying, “The songs are all wildly different, but the one I'm really excited about is called "Death Before Disco." It's a completely different sound for the band — it's like an anti-party song that you can party to. I can't wait for people to hear it. It brings back, lyrically, some of that wonderful fiction from the first album.

Way felt the band moving into more of a powerful 70s groove/ 80s rock, channeling the energy of Judas Priest and going as far as to purchase a Trans Am via Twitter all in the name of research.

"The fact there's a song now tentatively titled “Trans-Am” is a bold thing for this band to do as opposed to our previous material,” he told SpinnerMusic.co.uk. “There's something in that phrase that's obviously more than the car. But to bring something like old 70s muscle car culture into the music, that's kind of a different move."

“Death Before Disco” actually reminded me in an odd way of all the best stuff of 80s what is called cock rock, but not all of it was. "Judas Priest is considered metal, but it's great rock 'n' roll. It's having nothing to do with that era of metal, the hair rock, but then having everything to do with like the birth of power-anthem metal. After “Trans Am” that started to really bleed into the record,” Way said.

Taking a cue from Blade Runner’s Ridley Scott, the band was inspired by the director’s work ethic to capture something special and set their barometer for greatness to high. During an interview with Rock Sound the band confirmed their fourth album will be their defining moment.

"A friend who heard the record recently said he now had no interest in listening to our older work anymore, that we had made all our old material redundant. I took it as a compliment, the next thing you do should always make the last thing seem unimportant and I think that will happen when we finally release this album."

The album is due in spring 2010.