SPOTIFY REVIEW: Bayside "Cult" (Hopeless)

             When I first heard Bayside, they were a young band on Victory Records with a chip on their shoulder.  They still might have a chip on their shoulder (only in a good way), but now they’re matured into a band all their own.   Though I still love “Sirens and Condolences” as much as that first time I heard the advanced copy of it (I was kind of a big deal back then), Bayside seems to only get better with each album.

            I kind of lost touch with them a bit after “The Walking Wounded”, for personal reasons surrounding that album, but I’ve still been listening to them just not as much as a drug, if you will.

            Bayside continues to be angry.  Bayside continues to be defiant.  On these songs, there are several revelations reached such as not wanting to live forever, acknowledging getting older and that the best person to look out for you is yourself. 

            I’d say that Bayside sounds like this band or that band, but really they have their own sound now.  Those guitar solos and crunching chords—yeah, that’s just vintage Bayside now.   Putting everyone on trial in “Something’s Wrong’?  I’d expect nothing less from Bayside.

            From start to finish, this album just kicks your ass song by song.  I cannot say enough good things about this and how much I enjoy it, except for the fact that I want to listen to it and no one has commissioned me to do a book.