Bayside Release Festive New Single ‘Best Christmas Yet’

Queens pop-punk mainstays Bayside have gone full festive with ‘Best Christmas Yet’, a song they say is about what the holidays are really about.

Bayside have released a new Christmas single, ‘Best Christmas Yet’, along with a visualiser.

The track opens with a generous dose of classic seasonal bells before Anthony Raneri’s vocals kick in, and leans into nostalgia, old friends and familiar traditions rather than a picture-perfect holiday.

Watch the visualiser for ‘Best Christmas Yet’ or stream the single here.

Anthony Raneri on Ditching the Perfect Christmas

Raneri says the band wrote the song about “being with the people you love and who love you back”.

He argues that we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to have the ideal holiday, and that “most of the Christmas songs out there paint that unrealistic, idealistic picture.”

So ‘Best Christmas Yet’ is meant as the antidote: a song about the people, not the picture.

A Second Festive Surprise

It’s not the only seasonal gift from the band. Bayside have also shared their “surprise” take on a yuletide classic – have a listen and find out which one.

Earlier this year, the band put out a run of EPs, each curated by a different member with artwork they designed themselves. Every one included a B-side from 2011’s Killing Time that had only ever been available on vinyl.

25 Years of Bayside

The line-up of Raneri (vocals, guitar), Jack O’Shea (guitar, vocals), Nick Ghanbarian (bass, vocals) and Chris Guglielmo (drums) have been at it for a quarter of a century.

Their catalogue runs from 2004’s Sirens and Condolences through to 2024’s There Are Worse Things Than Being Alive. In 2023 they teamed up with Ice Nine Kills’ Spencer Charnas on ‘How To Ruin Everything (Patience)’, their first song to chart at SiriusXM Octane.

The press release also teases that more is on the way, though it doesn’t say what.

Not everyone wants pop-punk sleigh bells in early November, of course – but if any band was going to earn a festive pass, it’s one that has spent 25 years writing about real life.

Is ‘Best Christmas Yet’ going on your festive playlist, or is it far too early for Christmas songs?