THE CRIBS SHARE “NEVER THE SAME” AHEAD OF SELLING A VIBE
Credit: Steve Gullick
The Cribs are back with a new single and video, “Never The Same,” the final track to emerge from their highly anticipated forthcoming album Selling A Vibe, out this Friday, January 9, via Play It Again Sam. It’s a fitting closer to the album’s rollout—lean, reflective, and unmistakably Cribs.
Selling A Vibe marks the band’s first full-length release in over five years, and the response so far has made the wait feel justified. August’s lead single “Summer Seizures” landed with an immediate, passionate reaction from fans and media alike, followed by “A Point Too Hard To Make,” which paired chiming guitars with classic Cribs call-and-response dual vocals and earned a spot on the BBC 6 Music A-list. Each track has reinforced the band’s ability to sound urgent without forcing evolution for evolution’s sake.
On “Never The Same,” The Cribs turn their focus inward, reflecting on personal change and the strange push-and-pull of leaving parts of yourself behind. Guitarist and singer Ryan Jarman describes the track as a return to the band’s earliest instincts, short, streamlined, and intentionally unfussy, while lyrically grappling with the idea of feeling like a different person at this stage of life, and missing the chaos of who you used to be, even when it no longer makes sense.
The song came together surprisingly quickly. Bassist and singer Gary Jarman explains that it was written the night the band returned home from Italy after playing Louis Tomlinson’s Away From Home festival. Conversations earlier that weekend about possibly writing or producing tracks for Tomlinson’s next album helped unlock a sense of freedom, allowing the band to write quickly and without overthinking. The result was “Never The Same,” fully formed in a couple of hours, and ultimately too good to give away. In another timeline, Gary notes, it could have been a Louis Tomlinson song.
The accompanying video stays true to that same instinctive approach. Shot on 8mm film during the band’s US tour, primarily in San Diego, the visuals feature candid moments and live footage from the road. With Ryan handling much of the filming and Gary editing the final cut, the video is entirely self-directed, capturing an unpolished, honest snapshot of the band in motion. It’s less about spectacle and more about atmosphere—keeping everything in the same world as the album itself.
With “Never The Same,” The Cribs close out the Selling A Vibe chapter exactly how you’d want them to: focused, reflective, and confidently themselves. The album arrives this Friday, January 9, and it sounds like a band that never stopped knowing precisely who they are.
TRACKLIST:
1. Dark Luck
2. Selling A Vibe
3. A Point Too Hard To Make
4. Never The Same
5. Summer Seizures
6. Looking For The Wrong Guy
7. If Our Paths Never Crossed
8. Self-Respect
9. You’ll Tell Me Anything
10. Rose Mist
11. Distractions
12. Brothers Won’t Break