Sirens and Condolences

20 in 2024: Sirens and Condolences

This debut album from New York band Bayside was released on January 27th 2004. The album features a heavy mix of pop-punk melody and post-hardcore inspired instrumentals. Right off the bat one thing I really noticed about this record was it's very confident sound and wordy lyricism. Really, this sounds like an album released by a band that's been at it for a long time. A debut this strong doesn't come around very often.

The songs topics all range from various strong emotions dealing with self-esteem to shitty friendships, to shitty romantic relationships. Lyrics poetically detailing various introspective thoughts and feelings on self-worth and self-harm, eventually leading up to a final track that explodes in anger for all the bullshit the protagonist has suffered through. It's a very cohesive and cathartic album experience. Songs like "If You're Bored", "Masterpiece", "Talking of Michaelangelo", and "Phone Call From Poland" are some amazing examples of this kind of subject matter cutting through and reaching the listener.

Lead vocalist Anthony Raneri has a very strong sense of melody and combines that knack with very verbose and descriptive lyrics, which are all backed by heavy and rhythmic guitars and bass and drums, but also manage to work in touches of melodic lead as well, creating for a consistently energetic and engaging album from start to finish. The best example of combining the heavy with the melodic would be "Synonym for Acquiesce". It's the most calm of the tracks here, with verses that feel contemplative and sullen, before the loud power chords of the main choruses come crashing in as Raneri delivers some of the most emo lyrics you can ever hear in a song like this: "Take this razor, sign your name across my wrists
So everyone will know who left me like this". Jesus Christ dude. There are many more examples of the kind of pain and anguish our main character goes through within the songs here. Like wishing to be swallowed by the earth, drowning in the ocean, falling from heights and ultimately wrecking a car symbolizing his abuser into a guardrail on the highway. The juvenile sense of emotional frustration is easily offset by the way the songs are composed and presented, lending the listener an experience that feels more mature than it might be, and executed in a way that is befitting a band that has been it at it for far longer than Bayside were at this point.

Minus one or two songs not hitting as hard emotionally, I found this debut to really hold up very well 20 years later, and if anything signifies a brilliant career to follow for the then-fledgling band. Many lineup changes and one tragedy later, Bayside would grow into one of the most beloved rock acts in the punk and emo scene of the 2000's and onward. Sirens and Condolences is worth checking out still.

"Nothing is real
And I want you to know
That I'm not alright"