Download from Bandcamp

High quality clear cassette tape, limited run of 150.

Includes unlimited streaming of Does It Go Any Faster? via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Unlike its predecessor, Does It Go Any Faster explores the freedom of live takes and (aptly) speedrunning through an album’s hot points. Rather than laboring over individual moments and creating a Perfect Document, the release allows melody and expression to drive the action, resulting in a dynamic and expansive catalog of sounds and studio experimentation. The loose, present songwriting process shines from a cohesion that can only stem from friends sustaining bonds built years before in local music scenes, despite the challenges of the pandemic and tracks starting as potential solo work before being presented to the band.

The combination of a bountiful sonic wellspring and constant artistic evolution has resulted in Same’s most versatile set, boosted by returning producer Matt Schimelfenig’s keen ear (Gladie, Three Man Cannon). Same designed Faster? to pack a louder punch for their second round: the songs are shorter, the album runs at a hotter clip, the track listing is stuffed with more, more, more. The album’s title is earned from “Moped,” a zippy love letter to Jesse’s actual ride, and is inverted darkly on “Motorcycle,” its lyric sheet cribbed from accident scenes. When Same leans more political, like on “Admin Reveal,” they do so with a wry sense of humor. The song’s a breezy pop-rock cut set to island time, where a politician polishes off a beachside beverage while the legislation they just okayed harms millions. Sometimes the verbiage grows abstractly, lending more priority to enunciation and tone, like the wispy country-rocker “Facially Blind.” Often times, Same drops off narration entirely, bookending the album’s dizzying cocktail of slowcore, psych-pop, and indie rock with organic instrumental vignettes. If this seems like an overloaded LP2, it flies past in two clicks. Don’t worry: you can catch it again. Same will self-release Does It Go Any Faster? on 10/27.

-James Cassar

indie rock from pittsburgh, pa

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