Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 04/07/05
Label: WEA

All the elements appear to be in place. There's excitement, generally sparked off by Billy Lunn's rasping vocals. There's crackling sexual tension, whipped up by Billy and his bass-playing girlfriend Charlotte Cooper. There are tunes: Billy has a knack for fizzing, punky melodies. There are tough, militaristic beats, courtesy of Billy's brother Josh. There's feedback: Billy again. There's a back story: the trio hail from Britain's most nondescript urban centre, Welwyn Garden City, and were discovered by Glastonbury supremo Michael Eavis. Yes: conditions seem to be favouring The Subways.

But we've forgotten something, haven't we? Oh yeah: songs. The Subways have one truly great one: it's called "Oh Yeah", it was their first proper single, and it's got everything: a planet-sized riff, heart-stopping dynamics, swooping harmonies, sexy vocal interplay between Lunn and Cooper - the lot. But if you take "Oh Yeah" out of the equation, you're left with three kids with great instincts who aren't quite yet ready to walk the walk. This album proves it.

There's little boring or irritating about "Young For Eternity": on the contrary, it's quite a fun listen. The problem is, most of its songs consist of a mere couple of phrases endlessly repeated. Recent single "Rock'n'Roll Queen", for example, may offer a sketch of a great song, but they haven't bothered or been able to fill it out properly. The same applies to "I Want to Hear What You've Got to Say", and "Mary", and "City Pavement", and so on. Keeping it simple is a good rule of thumb in any creative endeavour; but there's such a thing as too simple.

If The Subways' rockier output suffers for being somewhat slight, a different shortcoming emerges on the couple of occasions when they slow things down. "No Goodbyes" and "She Sun" come off as rather maudlin, mawkish efforts, sounding above all like they were written by a 16-year-old, maybe because Billy was 16 when he wrote them (he's still only 19). It'd be pretty ridiculous and object-defeating to demand maturity from a rock'n'roll band, but the worst excesses of teenage self-pity are not the stuff of great music. Even The Smiths knew that a little playfulness and self-awareness can go a long way.

The Subways need to lock themselves away in WGC and dream-up some material worthy of their aesthetic. Meantime, this debut album can only be deemed one of promise rather than delivery.

    by Niall O'Keeffe