Bayside

Bayside: BaysideBayside (2005)
Victory Records

Reviewer Rating: 2.5

User Rating:

Contributed by: InaGreendaseBrian
(others by this writer | submit your own)
Published on August 23rd 2005While it's hard to stomach the off-key vocals and shoddy musicianship of the early work of Long Island, NY's Bayside, the band's previous full-length, last year's Victory debut Sirens And Condolences actually proved to be a rather competent profile of 90's Chicago pop-punk, if not a shameless tribut.

While it's hard to stomach the off-key vocals and shoddy musicianship of the early work of Long Island, NY's Bayside, the band's previous full-length, last year's Victory debut Sirens And Condolences actually proved to be a rather competent profile of 90's Chicago pop-punk, if not a shameless tribute to the Smoking Popes. For the self-titled effort here, the band has shed a bit of their plagiaristic skin, yet any Alkaline Trio or Popes comparisons they receive would still be about 75% accurate; fortunately, it's in the band's melodies and songwriting that there lies just enough strength to which it overshadows the similarities. Unfortunately, for all the baby steps forward the band manages to make towards originality, it also results several steps back as far as consistency goes, as Bayside suffers from a few unfortunate areas of filler.

The best tracks Bayside has to offer can be found in the more paced tunes like the almost double-time of opener "Hello Shitty" and its immediate follower "Devotion And Desire," with a surprisingly clever employ of the "set myself on fire" cliché. The remaining parts of the record flow just fine but don't do nearly enough to entrance the listener. Anthony Raneri's lazy singing style is an interesting piece when it's backed into a wall and forced into aggressiveness on tracks like these and the more interesting "Montauk," but usually ends up falling into the trap of songs that are merely "nice:" Not terrible by any means, but gray, mid-tempo pop-rock that may cause you to sing along to a single line and remain idle the rest (see: the middling "We'll Be O.K.," the white noise acoustic number "Don't Call Me Peanut"). "Half A Life" saves the record from a complete collapse at the finish line with the band's subdued nature finally making somewhat of an impact at the chorus; lyrically, there's likely to be a bitter taste on your tongue by song's end.

Put simply, Bayside is disappointing. Over the course of several records they'd been evolving rather well, and ironically stumble at a point they'd choose to dignify with self-titling. Maybe the effort was rushed a bit (as the record comes less than two years after S&C, and only several months since the departure of a key songwriting member), and perhaps that's why there are so few legitimately good tracks on the album. While the "bad" tracks aren't neccessarily all that bad, Bayside is a very stubborn effort that fails to move one way or the other despite its notable quality of a more unique gleam than its better predecessor.

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Devotion And Desire

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Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not respon sible for them in any way. Seriously.

oi_upthepunx_oi (February 9, 2007)

i thought this was a decent album. i don't like many bands on Victory Records. i don't like many bands that emo clones listen to. but this shit was pretty good. bayside is sort of a guilty pleasure of mine.

TAllen7 (August 11, 2006)

Bayside is an amazing band. Their lyrics are honest and deep, and their music is fantastic. An awesome punk rock band, and I expect many great things from them in the future.

I_love_Toe (May 31, 2006)

i love this album and the song tortures of the danmed

dumhed01 (May 25, 2006)

I love this album..

Anonymous (May 19, 2006)

yo wheres the accustic version

ilovesonny (May 4, 2006)

poopypants(paul)
please dont use gay as a synonym for shitty
if you think that bayside is shitty just say that they are shitty
ok? its no that hard
And by the way...they most definitly NOT shitty.
what do u listen to?--The Click 5?

ilovesonny (May 3, 2006)

This band is awesome and this is what ive listened to for the past month and a half and i'm still not sick of them. Some of you just dont know good music when you hear it!

lender (March 10, 2006)

forgot my score: a solid 4 stars

lender (March 10, 2006)

sry brian, but this cd is great. Its one that really grows onto you the more you listen to it.

md40_07 (November 26, 2005)

I'm not deaf, Bayside is awesome and i'm sad about what happened to them on Halloween. I think your parents should have aborted you Mr. Anonymous, grow some balls if your gonna insult someone and show your name.

Anonymous (November 4, 2005)

This CD has its moments where it reminds me of The Smiths and Nirvana (yes I know that they arn't anywhere near the greatness of those 2 bands so dont get all over me) but I said there are moments where they sound like them...

This person is obviously deaf.

md40_07 (October 10, 2005)

Anonymous (September 20, 2005)

Hmmm what the hell is there really to say about Bay side? Well i think that theyre stuff could have been way better, but then again i have only listened to one of their songs and honestly its pritty damn good. So i see people call them emo what the fuck is emo nowadays, what happend to death metal, pantera, and those crazy ass fuckn cannibal corpse fans? Well see now everyone is wearing the same clothes same stupid hardcorefuckn haircut the lame ass faggot tough attitude and yah honestly its gay!

Anonymous (August 27, 2005)

i dont know whats more sad, this band or the fact that you just said "mega-gay" ....wow

Anonymous (August 27, 2005)

This band is mega gay! This is girly-emo-bullshit! Only chicks like this shit. No more! No more! Stop it!

Anonymous (August 27, 2005)

Go Bayside!

It's sad that AC Slater's stuck hosting a show on Animal Planet.

Have you seen Dustin Diamond (Screech) nowadays? He's fucking buffed up! He's more muscular than Slater was! Nobody's going to be stuffing him into lockers now...

Anonymous (August 25, 2005)

"If that's not emo, then what is?"

Try bands that actually put thought into their lyrics.

I don't know, it seems like just carousing these message boards you'd have read the obligatory "Rites of Spring and Heroin" arguments that litter most reviews of faux-core bands.

-Will

Anonymous (August 25, 2005)

Inspection12e

Don't they have a line that goes: "so take your razor, write your name across my wrist so everyone will know who left me like this?"

If that's not emo, then what is?

tylerdurden8136 (August 25, 2005)

this is a decent album, just nothing special.

from the first time i heard sirens, i've considered this band to be alkaline trio lite. i know they sound somewhat similar, but for some reason i always think of the trio when i hear bayside. must be some mental problem.

Inspection12e (August 25, 2005)

This isn't emo. So you're 25 and you still don't know what emo is?

Anonymous (August 25, 2005)

I'm damn nearly 25, so like most everyone my age, I've outgrown emo but I really enjoy Bayside. They have this heavy catchiness I like quite a bit.

Certainly an exponentially better band than Hawthorne Heights,

md40_07 (August 24, 2005)

i can't wait to pick this album up and check it out. Didn't sound to bad from what i've heard so far.

Anonymous (August 24, 2005)

"i always picture you as the kinda guy who wouldnt be caught dead with someone who listened to bayside...do you not screen your friends?"

All of my friends listen to shitty music and hype the next new thing to death.

All that means is that my friends are no-good when it comes to music. They aren't bad people.

-Will

crazytoledo (August 24, 2005)

Devotion and Desire is good, the rest pretty much sucks.

Anonymous (August 24, 2005)

this album reminds me of the episode of saved by the bell that came on this morning. it was the one where everyone had hearst around their necks and you wore the heart of whoever you were taking to the dance. well screech and zack decided it would be easier to hide subliminal messages in their favorite songs...even mr.belding had a fix for zack which kinda creeped me out or maybe it was screech dressing up as a girl to hide the tape. anywho the girls find out and get even and its all a big mess but they're still friends in the end. so to conclude, the moral of the story is don't buy a crappy cd because you won't need subliminal messages to realize HOW MUCH THIS ALBUM SUCKS!!!

stevejonestherealbones (August 23, 2005)

"i remember in the comment section in the review of the last cd that the tatecore kids came in and said like "hahaha you guys suck, these guys listen to mainstream pop/rock music. That's why they're good". Ok, so a band is better if they listen to shitty music? Even more so, the tatecore kids wouldn't know who the fuck smoking popes are so it's udnerstandable."

so uh, if you didnt read that smoking popes news piece earlier today, what band would you have namedropped to look cool?

and WillSD...

i always picture you as the kinda guy who wouldnt be caught dead with someone who listened to bayside...do you not screen your friends?

- jones the bones

- stevejones8770@yahoo.com