Review: Matt Pryor – May Day | Under the Gun Review

Review: Matt Pryor – May Day

January 21st, 2012

Ethan Merrick

Artist: Matt Pryor
Album: May Day
Genre: Indie/Folk
Label: Vagrant

It seems that Matt Pryor enjoys constructing challenges for himself with his solo albums. For Confidence Man Pryor was determined to write-record-mix an entire album before he hit the age of 30. The result was a folk-y, alt-country stripped down version of his side-project The New Amsterdams. This time Pryor challenged himself to write-record-mix an entire album in May of ’11, hence the title. The end product of Pryor’s month of labored love finds Pryor unbridled, free to write an album that in the end has an overall feeling of a mix-tape of his collected work.

The album opens simply with “Don’t Let The Bastards Get You Down,” with only an acoustic guitar accompanying Pryor’s vocals as he sings, “I stumble when these words have no weight, but I get up again, don’t let the bastards get you down, cause they can go to hell.” The album quickly opens up and unfolds in proceeding tracks as Pryor layers the warm instrumentations of a harmonica, piano, banjo and varying percussive elements to his vocals. The musical height of the album comes during “Your New Favorite” with a bright, bouncy piano and harmonica melody.

Several of the tracks on the album feel almost like b-sides or outtakes off of some of Pryor’s more recent releases, but stripped down. “Polish the Broken Glass” feels like that it should belong on The Get Up Kids There are Rules with Pryor’s vocals possessing a metallic echo and the melancholy heaviness of the instrumentation. While “As If I Could Fall In Love With You Again” feels like that it should belong more on The New Amsterdams At the Foot of My Rival opening up with a bright harmonica and acoustic guitar. However, none of these tracks feel out of place on the album; all of them blending together to form some of Pryor’s darkest songs and warmest instrumentation.

In the end May Day comes across as a familiar album; one that many of Pryor’s long time fans will find warm and inviting upon first listen. Upon subsequent spins the tracks ease themselves into the listener, enveloping them in the album’s inviting familiar comfort.

Score: 9/10
Review written by: Ethan Merrick