Bayside
I haven’t posted an album review in quite some time, but for the last few months I have not been wowed by any new albums and/or bands. This month I have been pleasantly surprised by a few new bands that I have been introduced to, primarily by my friend, Load.
The first album that deserves mention is the new self-titled album by Bayside. These boys have been on the scene for some time and I was a fan of their first album, “Sirens and Condolences”. I definitely noticed raw potential and there were a few genuinely great songs. However, there was noticeable room for improvement.
With the new album, Bayside took everything I enjoyed about their first album and shored up all the weak spots and amplified the quality ten fold, to create a genuinely solid effort that will go down among my favorites.
Anthony Raneri, lead singer, brings his sleepy-esque, soft-of nasal sounding vocal talents to the festivities and has added a bit of an edge instead of just singing at the same pitch the entire time. He throws in some mild screams to great effect and adds a bit more depth to an already talented lineup.
The lyrics are top-notch, although there are one too many references to severing heads and getting shot in the face. I could deal with it once, but I don’t want these guys to turn into Senses Fail, who primarily talk about abusing women and coming up with creative ways of killing them. I don’t think this takes talent in the song-writing department and is a cheap attempt at selling records through shock value. I can’t really fault them for it because they have sold a fair amount of records, but I digress.
The album also excels because it seems like the band prides themselves on their musical abilities, primarily their guitar solos, which seems to be a rarity in music today.
This is a band that has learned from their previous shortcomings and have created an album that is the same and refreshingly progressive at the same time. They took everything you loved and then added some more sounds that you never knew you wanted, but you are glad you heard them. Hopefully with their next album, they can learn take their now matured style and add some more things that are music to our ears.
If you want to check out some of the standouts I would recommend checking out the amazing, “Devotion and Desire”, “Tortures of the Damned”, “Montauk”, and the acoustic, “Don’t Call Me Peanut”.
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