siuDE.com

Issue date: 2/21/07 Section: Music

Bayside: "The Walking Wounded"

Release date: Feb. 6, 2007

Victory Records

www.myspace.com/bayside



Rating: 1/5


Those who don't know the history of Bayside will feel it after this album.

After the death of drummer John "Beatz" Holohan in a tour van accident, Bayside regrouped and pressed on. While it's been a little longer than a year since then, "The Walking Wounded" seems a little too much of a eulogy to Holohan - deep, dark and depressing.

There's no hiding the pain for Bayside, as already in the opening title track, vocalist Anthony Raneri is singing, "I'm so tired of getting out of bed," and the rest of the album forms into a sinking depression with punk rock rhythm.

Through "Carry On," the album seems to become more and more of a therapy session or a prayer to Holohan, as Raneri blurts out, "I've lost control of life, I don't know how many times I've tried to undo the night you died."

Overall, "The Walking Wounded" is typical Bayside, a typical screamo sound without the screaming vocals, which has always been the band's way of separating itself from others. At the same time, Bayside is still just another band spewing out problems left and right in poetic lyrics that speak too much of personal experience and despair than most people can handle.

Musically, Bayside has excelled, matching appropriately its melodic guitar riffs with funereal lyrics. The drums and bass, though, are more than boring and simple, almost holding the other half from making interesting music, and maybe that's something to be bummed about in itself.

Other parts of this album contrast almost too much. In "Head On A Plate," it's almost as if Raneri wrote the words "lovely day for a symphony" just to have an orchestra play in the song, and the title track copies the popular My Chemical Romance/ Panic! At The Disco circus style for an effect that is not over-used but not original by any means.

Even more common on the album is generic, speedy pseudo-punk and the occasional slow ballad ("Landing Feet First," which is horrible, by the way). Ultimately, Bayside failed to record some new, interesting music, and those who buy "The Walking Wounded" have to suffer through it.

It's no easy task getting over the lost of such a close friend, and Bayside has to be given mad props for continuing to tour and release albums. But, that being said, the band also needs to separate its mourning from its music.

This music is so hard to swallow when so much misery seeps from every chord, and Bayside needs to realize that if it ever plans on smiling for fans again.

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