Given and Taken in Ink

Review: Matt Pryor, May Day [2012]

It's a wonder that May Day even exists.  There's the time factor: Matt Pryor's most well-known band, the Get Up Kids, recently reunited and released an album last year (one of GTI's Top 30 albums of 2011).  He's got his long running "side" project the New Amsterdams, as well as that band's alter-ego, the kid-friendly Terrible Twos, and his time spent playing acoustic shows for the "Where's the Band?" tour with the frontmen of Saves the Day, Bayside, the Early November, Thrice, and Into It Over It.  And amid all of that activity, Pryor is no longer on a major recording label, so the new record was recorded independently, supported through the funding platform Kickstarter.

But thankfully it does exist.  May Day is a welcome return of an extremely talented musician.  Of the dozen or so albums he's recorded, this may be his best yet.  Beginning with the lo-fi "Don't Let the Bastards Bring You Down," May Day is an intimate invitation into the world of Matt Pryor.  The veteran songwriter has pulled off an interesting trick with his latest album: While the song titles would suggest a somber and dark affair (e.g. "The Lies Are Keeping Me Here," "Unhappy is the Only Happy You'll Ever Be"), May Day is the most whimsical-sounding collection of songs Pryor has ever recorded.  Adding harmonica, banjo, and piano to Pryor's sprightly acoustic guitar, the joy of creating music is readily apparent here.

That being said, some of the record's highlights are its stripped-down, lo-fi moments, such as "As Lies Go...This One is Beautiful."  It's meaning is initially obscured, as Pryor only alludes to the periphery of a struggling relationship.  In the final 30 seconds, though, Pryor croons "Best if both our strayed loves steal away," finally revealing infidelity as the song's source of strife.  Elsewhere, Pryor insulates sad sentiments like "Unhappy is the only happy that I'll ever know" with the accompaniment of gentle banjo and percussion.

May Day closes with the poignant "What My Tired Eyes Would View."  After an album of working through lies and disappointments, he realizes "A new day has dawned / So welcome the sunlight / I've seen everything that my tired eyes would view / There's nothing that compares to seeing you."

Matt Pryor has always been a master of writing sincere and empathetic stories about the brokenhearted and unhappy.  That hasn't changed on May Day, but now there seems to be a spring in his step, a sense of hope that maybe better days are on the horizon.

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