Mayday Parade
Black Lines


2.0
poor

Review

by ASnideReturns USER (26 Reviews)
October 9th, 2015 | 63 replies


Release Date: 2015 | Tracklist

Review Summary: Bring me her heart, and leave the rest for dead...

A decade of playing, millions of faces and thousands of roads later and Mayday Parade set to dazzle the world with the album they truly wanted to create; "Black Lines". It was to be their magnum opus, their truest form of self expression they could give to their fans, and the most honest album they could have written for themselves. The integrity and stylistic choices are what lead to the downfall of the album. This is the end of the road for Mayday Parade; their aspirations have brought them into a new era. They lost the map, they're pointing their pen at a new location and it's time to pull over. There's a special love to be felt when listening to "Black Lines", but that love is amalgamated with a deep seething hatred in the form of dispiriting unfamiliarity that permeates in every note of every song.

The second that Derek's under produced vocals come screeching in at the start of "One of Them Will Destroy the Other" you're treated to the repressed ambiance of the album. With every forced dark undertone comes a lackluster melody, a disappointing vocal line and a half baked song idea; what is brought to mind is a band reaching their sound into territories that just were never meant to flow. From the distorted dissonance of the guitar lines in "Hollow" to the straining vocal performance in "All On Me", nothing is coherent throughout this entire album. The album's darkened coat of Alt-Rock and Grunge washes over you like molten ash over a pile of shining gold.

"It's all pretend, it's just fake till you mean it. One day you'll mean it for real."

- "Until You're Big Enough"

In terms of musicality, "Black Lines" is a well constructed album; but the execution is dreary in the worst way. Gleams of light in the form of hopeful inspiration linger in both the lyricism and arrangements of tracks such as "Narrow" and "Look Up and See Infinity, Look Down and See Nothing" but they're snuffed out in their own depressed stupor. Every drum fill clings to the guitar arrangements as though they're just flimsy sheets of paper that you can't tear. Derek Sanders sounds dead, his inspirations and dreams just won't translate into his voice; he drags along at a snail-like pace unless he strains for any sort of emotion in tracks such as "Let's Be Honest."

I can't bring myself to truly hate this album, because part of me loves it unconditionally. It's the equivalent of fucking with no emotion; the pleasure is there and romantic intentions are full throttle but the spark burned out a long time ago, leaving a husk of a personal connection. "Black Lines" is that discarded husk, and before it even finishes, it's ready to die.



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user ratings (186)
3.4
great
other reviews of this album
beachdude (4.5)
A genuinely surprising exercise in experimentation and nuance....

bagof4grapes (3.5)
Mayday Parade tries to make a Brand New album, and it kinda worked....



Comments:Add a Comment 
NervousBreakdown
October 9th 2015


172 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

5 pos's with only 48 views and 1 reply? I smell some alts from you, but of course I wouldn't be surprised given your penchant for bullshit attention.

Snake.
October 9th 2015


25253 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

>Mayday Parade album has 4.2 avg

>snide reviews it

>rating isn't above a 4.5

>rating is actually below a 2.5





wat

Cygnatti
October 9th 2015


36026 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

hard af pos. completely agree. when i said this band needs to do something way fuckin different, this wasn't what i had in mind.

Cygnatti
October 9th 2015


36026 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

ugh the worst part is that they sound like they're trying so hard but it's so fuckin...pointless and even flat out bad. this whole darker and edgier shit doesn't suite them at all.

Cygnatti
October 9th 2015


36026 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

welp who carez about this shite when we'll always have this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BFCTLwW8l4

Snake.
October 9th 2015


25253 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

can't wait for 20 pages of snide telling us that he hates this

ScuroFantasma
Emeritus
October 9th 2015


11982 Comments


Good review

beachdude
October 9th 2015


849 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

I disagree almost across the board... I don't think Derek Sanders' vocals feel dead at all, in fact, I would say his vocal performance seems almost too ambitious, in that he tries to do so many different things with his voice and not all of them succeed, but that actually contributes to the excitement, because it finally feels like he's doing something different. A lot of people are going to be thrown for a loop by how different the stylistic choices are, but I feel that beneath the different execution, the core traits that made Mayday a good band are still there, and actually stand out more now in a new, more refined context. The passages that are supposed to feel intense actually feel intense, and the melancholy passages feel genuine and never melodramatic. I think they pushed themselves and succeeded wildly.

zaruyache
October 9th 2015


27381 Comments


weirdly good review. Stoppit Snide. Stoppit right now.

Cygnatti
October 9th 2015


36026 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

also: a general rule of thumb, when a band takes up brand new influences, it almost always sounds awful.

LotusFlower
October 9th 2015


12000 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

it's better than everything else they released, but at the end of the day it's just an average pop-punk album.



edit: this is based off of one song I heard, I should probably hear the rest before I make any final judgements

beachdude
October 9th 2015


849 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

Mike Sapone is a great producer, he clearly achieved the sound he set out to have. I think the raw production works for the types of songs they made... strongly disagreed that Derek's voice is "under-produced".

beachdude
October 9th 2015


849 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

Oh yeah, I pos'd but that should be obvious... this is very well-written even though I disagree across the board.

beachdude
October 9th 2015


849 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

I think his vocal performance is pretty admirable, I'm surprised at how many styles he can pull off, even if he's not masterful at all of them.

beachdude
October 9th 2015


849 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

Fair enough, couldn't disagree more personally... I can't wait for more people on here to hear this and to see what they think.

Ebola
October 9th 2015


4516 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

I've never really cared for anything this band has released. Will I like this more?

beachdude
October 9th 2015


849 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

Tbh I have a feeling most people will have opinions in the middle of mine and Snide's, but personally I love this.

Ebola
October 9th 2015


4516 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

Listening right now.

I'm like 2 minutes in and holy shit, this sounds literally nothing like any of their older stuff.

Ebola
October 9th 2015


4516 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

I haven't quite decided what I think of it yet, but I certainly prefer it to their old brand of relatively by-the-numbers pop punk. If I had to compare this to anything, it would be a more mature My Chemical Romance.

Ebola
October 9th 2015


4516 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

Three Cheers and Bullets, yeah, definitely.

Tbh I expected to hate this but I actually like it quite a bit. Go figure.



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