Bayside Release "Best Christmas Yet" and Their Take on "Jingle Bells"

By Cole Ashby, November 4, 2026

What's out

Bayside released "Best Christmas Yet" on Wednesday, November 4, 2026. The Queens band's new holiday single comes as a two song release, Best Christmas Yet & Jingle Bells, on Apple Music and Spotify, with the band's version of "Jingle Bells" as the second track. Apple lists "Best Christmas Yet" at 3:16 and "Jingle Bells" at 2:36.

The lineup on the release is Anthony Raneri on vocals and guitar, Jack O'Shea on guitar and vocals, Nick Ghanbarian on bass and vocals, and Chris Guglielmo on drums.

Bayside: "Best Christmas Yet" (official lyric video)

The release calls the clip a visualizer. On the Bayside YouTube channel it is posted as a lyric video, next to a matching one for "Jingle Bells."

What Raneri says

Raneri explains the idea in the release. "We wrote 'Best Christmas Yet' to address what the holidays are really about to us, being with the people you love and who love you back," he says. "We put a lot of pressure on ourselves during the holidays to have a specific kind of time or for them to look and feel idealistic and most of the Christmas songs out there paint that unrealistic, idealistic picture. We thought there should be a song about what the holidays are really about."

What the lyrics say

The words, printed in full in the video description, back him up. On the page, this is a breakup song that refuses to sulk. The narrator decides a necklace an ex left behind "would probably be best / Hung from the tree." Later he remembers sitting by the fire as a kid, then adds, "So I piled up your stuff / Making sure it was lit."

Then the chorus turns the page: "So I'll call everyone that I know / And tell 'em this Christmas I'll be the host." The best line is a pun that works better read than said: "'Cause the only presents I need this year / Is this presence of people who want to be here."

Where it fits

The single caps a busy stretch. Apple Music lists four five song EPs from Bayside between June 26 and September 18, 2026: Anywhere But Here, Proxima Centauri b, Bark At The Moon and Premium Selections. Per the release, each one was curated by a single band member, who also designed its artwork, and each carried a B-side from Killing Time (2011) that had only been out on vinyl.

The catalog behind it runs from Sirens and Condolences (2004) through Shudder (2008), Cult (2014) and Interrobang (2019) to There Are Worse Things Than Being Alive (2024), their most recent album.

My read

This is a read on the rollout and the words, not the sound. Putting an original and a standard out together, seven weeks before Christmas, is a smart move. "Jingle Bells" gives casual listeners a title they already know, and the original does the real work.

The lyric video is the right format for a song whose best idea is a pun you need to see spelled out. And Raneri's pitch, a Christmas song set against the "unrealistic, idealistic picture," matches what the lyrics deliver: a host who got left and throws the party anyway.

Verdict: A well-timed holiday pair, sold by a lyric video built around its best pun, from a band that has kept new music coming since June.