Same – Bluish (Music Video)
With the genre of bedroom/DIY indie rock, it’s easy to fall into a common template of trippy guitar effects and slow-burning rhythms. As artists continue to reach back into their early years of the ’90s to bring out elements of bands like The Pixies, Slowdive, and The Smiths into their music, it’s hard not to get washed into a meld of overdone indie rock.
Incorporating finer details in the music and song structure seems to be the most resilient way to stand out in a worn-out genre. Despite the irony of their name, when Pittsburgh indie rock group Same originally formed, their goal was to be unique in their sound and not get locked in with the cratefuls of the ultra-indie DIY scene. The band’s guitarist, Tim Higgins, shares:
“Originality and experimentation are things we talked about a lot early on—and still do. We didn’t want to pigeonhole ourselves into making a certain kind of music. A lot of people make a band and say ‘We want our band to sound like this other band that we like.’ We had all done that before. We wanted to actively stay away from that mindset.”
Trying to pinpoint each of the band’s influences would make an exhaustive list on their upcoming release Plastic Western. The forthcoming record jumps around through different genres, bringing in pop, folk, shoegaze, and bits of experimental rock into their discography.
Their new single “Bluish” leans more into the dream-pop end of their sound, but incorporates glittering details in the song’s layers, due to the roster of two guitarists and a bassist, plus stay interesting by playing around with the rhythmic structure and dynamics of the song.
The accompanying illustrated music video helps to capture the song’s dancing, slacker-pop sound and the fluttering, hands-on aesthetic of the song’s reverb-filled layering.
Enjoy the song and video below, and stay tuned for Plastic Western, out May 8th. Head to their website to pre-order.
