Artist: Bayside
Album: Self-Titled
Label: Victory Records
Rating:
Reviewer: John Frank

In much of the music scene today, originality is not something that is as common as one would hope. While it is one thing to be able to compare one band’s sound to another’s, there are too many instances where the music is essentially the same, but the lyrics are different. With this album though, there really is not much that I can compare it to. Bayside is a very necessary album that will fit nicely into just about any collection.

Bayside starts out with a very energetic pace, driven mainly by the guitars. The rhythms seem a bit held back, but the heavy sound they produce seem to strike a good balance between speed and substance. When the vocals do come in, they are an almost perfect compliment to the off-speed rhythm. One thing that is always good to hear is when a vocalist is able to make words sound like they rhyme without having to actually rhyme them. This first part of the album is a very solid section, and contains two songs that could easily be successful singles, these tracks being “Devotion and Desire” and “Tortures of the Damned”.

The fourth track slows down considerably, and with the first listen this worried me. A lot of albums will be very powerful in the first few songs, but then trail off into mediocrity as the CD continues. While I think “They Looked Like Strong Hands” is a weak point of the album, the rest of the songs continue to hold the energy of the first few. Instead of slowing down and throwing in some acoustics, the last half of the album (with the exception of “Don’t Call Me a Peanut”, which is an acoustic track) changes the pace mainly by having the bass and drums lead in places the guitars had done previously.

While the CD as a whole is a very good work, there are always tracks that standout as singles or crowd favorites at a show. In addition to the previously mentioned songs, a couple favorites of mine were “Blame it on Bad Luck”, which has a bit offbeat compared to the rest of the album, and is a great middle-album track, and “Existing in a Crisis (Evelyn)” which could have radio potential.

Overall this album is great. There are only a couple of weak points, but nothing that is going to ruin the disc as a whole. As a band, Bayside has really raised the bar from their previous release Sirens and Condolences, which in its own right was a good album. It is hard to relate this to another album for comparison, but basically anyone who likes some guitars that have a heavier sound, but not as hard as metal, and some very well written lyrics and vocals should check out this release.