Review
Mayflower
Second Best Sunsets

Kiss of Death (2010) Loren

Mayflower – Second Best Sunsets cover artwork
Mayflower – Second Best Sunsets — Kiss of Death, 2010

After a brief intro track (what's the point of intros, anyway?), Mayflower kicks things off with the energetic "I Never

", an Off With Their Heads influenced gruff punk song with group choruses and a memorable hook. It's a fitting start to Second Best Sunsets, setting the tone of cynicism contrasted with bouncy, hold-your-beer-in-the-air sing-a-longs. What separates Mayflower from other, similar-sounding contemporaries, are Teddy Casper's vocals, which have a hint of emotive inflection that supersedes the frustrated tone used by other bands. It's a style fitting with other Kiss of Death releases, even if the band hails from Syracuse instead of the Tampa region. It holds that familiar feeling that gets the blood pumping early on, but it's new enough to intrigue. As Casper rushes through full sentence lyrics in "I Never

", there's an urgency that leads to the chorus of "I hope and believe that some day." Another standout track is "House Show is a Four-Letter Word." The guitars set the tone early before the breakdown and vocals kick in with the "we're all in this together" mantra.

The lyrics range in topic, taking on macroeconomics in "Election Days," to the positivecore message of "I Want to Live," with its refrain of "Wake up/Before you wake up dead" that reminds of a hardcore lyric book. Where it suffers is that many of the choruses come across a little too directly, as in the preachy "Election Days" or in "Cellophane." It's catchy, but a little more nuance would be appreciated. The tone is rather serious, with a few sound clips inserted to break up the music, but they serve mostly to reinforce the thematic intent of the song. While I'm all for changing the world, the tone can get a bit heavy-handed and it knocks some momentum away. When they aren't talking political, it's mostly an uplifting, community tone that is well-suited to the group choruses.

7.0 / 10Loren • August 26, 2010

Mayflower – Second Best Sunsets cover artwork
Mayflower – Second Best Sunsets — Kiss of Death, 2010

Related news

Free Take This To Heart-Mayflowersampler

Posted in MP3s on August 9, 2014

Recently-posted album reviews

Sexfaces

Bad Vibes OST
Slovenly (2025)

Best thing about writing reviews is finding out about new stuff that I otherwise might not have heard. Also writing reviews for bands that aren’t friends of mine is pretty cool but when I hear a band I really like, like Sex Faces, it makes me want to be friends with them, I can't help it! I’m not even halfway … Read more

Unseemlier

I Have A Screw Loose, Somewhere
Sell The Heart Records (2025)

What does Unseemlier sound like? I've been mulling that question as I listen to I Have A Screw Loose, Somewhere for a while now. As I listen to more and more Sell The Heart releases, The band is from Boston, but seemingly influenced by late '80s DC. It's heavy, but more with hardcore-like vocals shouted over moving, building guitars and … Read more

Personality Cult

Dilated
Dirtnap (2025)

I had a hard time starting this review. I can’t help coming back to the fact that it sounds like Marked Men. It does, maybe intentionally so, as Dilated is the second of Personality Cult’s albums that is produced by Jeff Burke of Marked Men and Radioactivity. But I don’t necessarily like to say a band sounds like another band … Read more