Let's begin with the obvious angle. Yes, there's certainly a hefty portion of The Sames' debut full-length that closely resembles the output of many other bands: Superchunk, Archers of Loaf and Polvo (the Big Three of the Chapel Hill-Raleigh-Durham triad from which the band hails), as well as Mercury Rev and Swervedriver. But their collective talent saves them from the dangers of their irony, resulting in a release that is familiar but neither imitative nor unoriginal.

" Heart Pine" features a gradual build and then shoots straight out of the gate, a mix of dense, driving guitars and frenetic drumming. Frontman (and founder of the Pox World Empire label) Zeno Gill sings at one point, "I want to explode," and the music, the sonic equivalent of bottled fury searching for a means of release, would seem to confirm that. But on the whole, You Are The Sames doesn't stick to this kind of angst-rock. "In Liberty Lights," "Bigger Than a God" and "The Light That We've Bent" are brighter, airier, poppier - "The Light" almost to a fault.

" Like Song (Really)," with its catchy gang chorus, and "Hate the Ocean," which boasts a seductive slide guitar hook, are two further standouts on a disc that is quite strong from start to finish, and the anthemic "Bomb Scare" keeps the album from sagging in the middle. The only marked low points are the drab and repetitive "Honorary Wilmingtonian" and the plodding closer "Snake." "The Light That We've Bent" might have been a contender for the limpest song of the thirteen here, but its keyboard-infused singalong chorus is too much of a treat.

The easy prediction is that the band's name is going to prove to be as much an asset as it is a curse. Gill's songwriting method has an appealing simplicity, yet it runs the risk of having that appeal diminished by predictability. Just skipping through the first five to ten seconds of each track reveals an all-too-consistent, even formulaic approach. The Sames have done well to avoid sounding the same as their models and predecessors, but after this commendable debut, the challenge will be to avoid sounding too much like themselves. – Eric J. Iannelli