Bay State, The - The Haunted EP Review

Who?

Meet the only unsigned band on the Glamour Kills roster—The Bay State. The pop-rock foursome from Portland, ME, have just released their first EP, a three-song collection that includes the song that made them GK’s newest play thing: “Hey Hey Glamour Kills.” PureVolume also named The Bay State one of the twenty top unsigned bands for 2009.

How is it?

The Haunted EP lasts a total of ten minutes, but The Bay State doesn’t waste any time in grabbing a listener’s attention. Vocalist-bassist Susanne Gerry takes the cake for outstanding vocals on the EP. Gerry maintains a healthy vocal hardiness instead of donning a fake, waifish falsetto (did someone say "Lights"?); she retains a sense of femininity while conveying the ability to kick someone’s ass. The first song on the EP, “Liars,” takes a brave approach to surviving a breakup after you realize what you had wasn’t love at all. The second song, headed up by vocalist-guitarist Tom Tash, takes a more melancholy approach to post-love (“Things will get better some day, I’m sure”). The last song, "Hey Hey Glamour Kills,” is obviously about, well, Glamour Kills. The Bay State may be completely selling out here, but let’s be honest: the song is probably the smartest business move of members’ collective music career. And it probably didn’t help that the song sounds like something directly out of Alex Gaskarth’s “creative genius.”...full text so good





by Jonasxfreakk922

hey hey glamour kills is definitely my favorite.
really good EP, downloaded some of their songs off of pure volume and was hooked :)
YOU ROCK BAY STATE





by band lover 23432

Great buy,worth the buy times 10
Can't Miss It!





by Sammeh!

Everyone should buy this! The Haunted EP is amazing, and has many different tastes. It's so unique and you won't find anything as good anywhere else :) The Bay State keeps getting more amazing with each new song and this EP proves it!...full text Last we left the Bay State, they had turned out the excellent EP Let's Turn This City On, released just over a year ago. In the meantime, they've played the Warped Tour, picked up a booking agent, and worked hard on their live show.

Their new three-song EP, released December 11, indicates they may have fallen in love with the live show while they were at it. Recording at home, at the Halo, and at 32 Central in Bangor, they've crafted a more organic sound (if you can call anything with Auto-Tune organic), whereby if Evan James plays acoustic guitar live instead of viola, that means no viola on "Haunted," the EP's title track. It also means no more of those samples and studio trickery that marked the last EP.
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But there's plenty of bouncy acoustic on "Haunted," until singer Tom Tash comes in with bits of chord forms on the electric, finally giving way to Susanne Gerry's bridge as everything falls away but light chords and bells like snowflakes: "I'm haunting you/You know/But I'm haunted, too." Then a chorus of voices finishes with the thoughts of both parties: "Why'd you have to go/and leave me here all alone?"

What a contrast to "Hey Hey Glamour Kills," written for the Glamour Kills clothing line (Bay State are the first unsigned band on their roster), and a straight-up club anthem, as upbeat and intense as anything that's ever come out of Maine. Of course, they Auto-Tuned the crap out of it, to the point where you can't quite tell if it's ironic like those Auto-Tune the News guys or if they're just riding the sound that made the Auto-Tune ultra-popular in the first place, right to the edge and back....full text