San Francisco is home to many new and exciting bands in this time of music. One of them is a grunge and shoegaze inspired rock band consisting of members from local San Francisco legends The She’s called Plush. On their bandcamp artist page, they list their music as “San Francisco Sob Rock”. The band’s music could be described as sparkling guitar sounds mixed with bursts of distortion, really tight and hard-hitting drums, and melodic bass riffs that drive each song. The lyrics of their music are often very emotional and the music compliments the words by bringing clarity and vision. At live shows, their songs get your head bobbing and body swaying side to side.
Although Plush’s music can be found on a number of platforms, most of their music can be found on their bandcamp page. The first of three releases of music is a three song EP that was recorded on a four-track recorder called “Pale”. The vocals are very weak and distant, there’s much distortion and chaos, but the song content is still easy to understand and the production decisions give a vintage or a destroyed sort of vibe to this collection of music. Their second release is a seven-song album called “Pine”. The production value on this album is much more clear and polished than their EP and it acts as a transition into perhaps bigger, better opportunities for Plush’s music. Most of the music on this release is mid-tempo head-bangers with sweet melodies. There’s a nice raw quality that is slapped onto the entire release; there’s this unconventional fuzz or feedback that is audible at quiet points during the songs. Their most recent release “Please” is a five-song collection that was put out on April 29th, 2016. This album definitely has much cleaner sounds, like reverb, but their original rock and roll integrity is still held. The last song on the album “Fixes” features both male and female vocals and gives a sense of unity to the entire release.
What makes Plush so unique is that they are a female dominant band. Currently the band consists of three women, who all front the band, and a man who plays drums. Not only is this something that’s relatively new to the music scene, but also it gives them a very diverse edge that perhaps other groups may not have. Still, their music is the most important aspect of what makes Plush what it is, and their music is something that shoegaze and grunge lovers alike should not miss out on.
