Same As You – Montreal, Québec, Canada
Montreal has an excellent Punk-Rock output and as does its home province of Québec, a land itself perpetually producing an excellent Punk music crop as a general rule. To the casual observer and Punk fan this is likely sentence worth heeding but what actually makes such even more notable and substantial is that both of these specific locales are a part of a greater piece of sonic territory, that being the greater – and indeed great – land of Canada.
Enter, Same As You via PCTmusique.
2018 saw the band release two EP’s of majoritively 90’s inclined Punk-Rock music comprised of sing-a-longs, buzzsaw guitars and more melodies than you can Pop-Punk at and after all of this, perhaps the strongest appeal of this band is their championing of a clear ethos… Their status as ordinary people, just like and the same as – wait for it – you.
The band’s jagged yet melodic approach is ensnaring from the very first note of the April 2018 The Lies We Told. ‘Wisconsin’ has a clear melodic lead yearning for one part of the 90’s while gritty rhythms battle said lead for supremacy and match it with gritty chugging more 77′ than those sweet 90’s. This fortuitously results in a sound probably stuck more in the 80’s alongside Dag Nasty if you really think about it. Don’t ask me how it works, rather enjoy the classic Alternative Rock breakdowns playing you out.
This first EP is a honest as it gets and after closer listening and inspection of the really very raw life-inspired catharsis that particularly stands out on the eponymous ‘The Lies We Told’, the band’s mantra of “same as you” is nigh-perfectly on point; as is the hook-laden chorus.
However, releasing such a raw bare-all Punk EP tying itself to not one but three eras in the year of 2018 was seemingly not quite enough for this Québécois five-piece, as four more tracks in the form of the sardonically titled Coffee and Pills emerged that very November. This is a second release that quite cleverly was and indeed is notably adept at not only ensnaring you with it’s own sounds but also actually leaving you appreciating it’s predecessor even more, for reasons both initially obvious prior to this instance and those now not quite so covert.
What am I talking about? Well, Charles-Édouard Carrier and his classic Punk-esque vocals very much contrast a more melodic and arguably classic Pop-Punk leaning sound that sits somewhere between The Raging Nathans via said vocals and Pennywise via the sharp strings. Go back and listen to The Lies We Told and tell me I’m wrong.
Coffee and Pills is far more inclined towards classic Pop-Punk and that mid-point just before fully unapologetic and unrelenting Skate Punk but the band fail to lose their punch both musically and very unambiguously via their life-punk-punk-life lyricisms. Same As You achieve exactly what they set out to do to a flawless extent.
‘Coffee and pills for tonight, coffee and pills I’ll be alright’
If any of the following household names mean anything at all to you or anyone you know, then I would very much recommend Same As You to fans of such; those being Descendents, Pulley and Face To Face. Coffee and Pills may not be as abrasive and as charged in the traditional sense compared to its slightly older sibling but it lands just as playfully abrupt in classic Punk fashion. This “fashion” being as organically as it can once again embodying the “same as you” aesthetic.
Same As You, they write Punk songs about life and such, from instance to thought, onward to paper and then ultimately at home in your ear drum.
