Sweet marks Mayday Parade’s return to independent releases for the first time in nearly twenty years; and if that weren’t daunting enough, it is also the first in a pre-planned trilogy. Immediately, it is clear that the band’s eight studio album (more on that later) is a comparatively buoyant entry to their catalogue, yet this is a double-edged sword: the release fits the season, and opener “By The Way” is a fresh, poppy interpretation of Mayday’s staple sound, but it lacks the melancholic introspection which has historically proved such a winning formula.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the poppier direction is not the result of selling out; this is simply the music Mayday Parade want to make, which is certainly more than can be said for similarly-sized bands in the alternative landscape. While this more upbeat look leaves Sweet in an awkward spot, peaks such as “4,000 Days plus The Ones I Don’t Remember” and “Towards You” are some of my favourite tracks from the group in years.
“Towards You” is the melodic cut of the album, and all the better for it. It’s a stronger cut lyrically, has the most varied vocal performance, and manages to create a very textured soundscape from a very minimal arrangement, building layer on layer from its humble acoustic beginnings to a grand, hopeful crescendo. It is a more fitting conclusion than the record’s actual closer, lead single “Pretty Good To Feel Something”, even if the latter remains a standout for its more punky stylings.
Of the firmly pop punk entries, “4,000 Days plus The Ones I Don’t Remember” is the most balanced and refined, underscored by some good old fashioned cathartic lyricism. The outro is somewhat marred by the unnecessarily tacked-on na na na chant, which hasn’t been done well in this style since Blink-182’s “All The Small Things”, but I can forgive it.
“Who’s Laughing Now” is an entirely new territory for the Florida quintet, but ultimately feels like Mayday Parade’s belated stab at late 2010s pop punk. The double-time vocal run, where Sanders and Knuckle Puck vocalist Joe Taylor trade off lines, comes across a little clumsy, and the song as a whole does not play to the former’s singing prowess. The experiment is nonetheless commendable.
Otherwise, the rest of the tracklist lacks a sense of distinct identity: “Who We Are” is a prototypical pop punk song whose refrain is repeated to the point of satire; “Natural” is a run-of-the-mill pop rock anthem I have heard before, though the bridge is lovely; and “This Personified” is a twenty-one-second piano interlude which should frankly have been incorporated into “Who We Are”.
Mayday Parade have proven capable of capturing lightning in a bottle with the likes of 2007’s A Lesson in Romantics. Sweet justifies its existence, which is always a worry when a band is so deep into their career, but there are sequencing question marks, and many of the themes have been covered on earlier and better material. It is a solid enough pop punk record to kick off the new era, but it falls short of the high bar they have previously set. Realistically, the twenty-four-minute runtime also strays closer to an EP than an album, and I cannot help but wonder whether combining the premier tracks of the forthcoming trilogy into one album would have been wiser. I hope to be proven wrong.
6/10
Sweet releases independently on April 18th, and you can preorder it here.