AMG Review of Tales Told by Dead Friends

Corey Apar
All Music Guide

Florida-based rock sextet Mayday Parade falls squarely in the center of the emo pack on their Fearless debut, Tales Told by Dead Friends. Seeing as the band came together from a merger between two popular local bands, the three guitarists and three vocalists in its ranks aren't really a surprise. But with such a large crew on board, Mayday's overall sound should be much fuller sounding than it is on this EP, instead of it being hard to even tell if there's more than one guitarist playing at a time. With better production, this could easily be fixed (since the band's songwriting is pretty good), but as it stands now, there's still not a whole lot to separate the band from all their peers, aside from the distinct, drawn-out pronunciations of one of their vocalists. The trade-off between main singers Derek Sanders and Jason Lancaster has a tendency, as in "Your Song," to sound pretty similar to Fall Out Boy, though admittedly, that's hardly a bad thing. "When I Get Home, You're So Dead" has a nice little percussive and acoustic flair running through it, while "One Man Drinking Game" manages to target a fading relationship without becoming ridiculously sappy. Most songs are in the vein of the latter's mid-tempo heartbreak, which somewhat causes the EP to have a uniform aftertaste. But even with its flaws, this is still a good starting point with a lot of potential; let's just hope Mayday Parade can expand from here to really carve itself out a more distinct identity on their eventual full-length.