Omaha mainstay Ted Stevens put time in with a number of influential acts, but Mayday was his most personal. Stevens began his esteemed career in the brooding chamber pop outfit Lullaby for the Working Class, an act whose trio of late-'90s albums pushed the boundaries of quiet melodic dirges and complex orchestration. After 1999's Song the members parted ways without officially disbanding, and Stevens found himself replacing Steve Pedersen on guitar and second vocals in Omaha's Cursive. After settling in on the group's breakthrough hit Domestica, Stevens went on to assume an even more commanding role with his powerful vocal presence. He also became a touring member of his Cursive bandmate Tim Kasher's the Good Life. Still, the quieter work of his past wasn't out of his system.\r \r \r \r Named after an annual concert that Stevens and his friends threw on the first day of May, Mayday was the songwriter's return to his earlier style of compositio...