Say Anything - Baseball

Max Bemis has never met an emotion he couldn’t make manly. Sex, love, and heartbreak have hardly sounded as nonchalantly masculine as they do when Bemis barks them. Even at the mercy of towering guitar chords, it is Bemis that makes the most powerful effect, and that’s what drives Say Anything as a band and Baseball as an album. Like the best of pop-punk, Say Anything uses the emphasis on punk and chooses to be loud and involving instead of relying on catchy, forgettable hooks, a perfect choice to back up Bemis and his masochistic lyrics. Even LA Weekly lists Say Anything first as a band that is saving L.A.’s music scene, a fitting title to Bemis and the rest of the band’s influence on the genre. Baseball (released back when they were still Sayanything), for what it’s worth, is better than Bemis gives it credit for. He is so unsatisfied with it that it’s now out of print and he won’t play any of the songs at a concert. 200 copies of the album were sold before being discontinued, and go up to $250 on eBay. But Bemis has a point to his actions, and too much of Baseball, as charging as it sounds, falls resoundingly flat to make it live up to what Say Anything can do.

-From www.sputnikmusic.com