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Album Review
by SashaS
4-7-2005
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| The Subways: red-hot music on ace debut |
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The Subways: 'Young For Eternity'
(City Pavement)
The Subways: teenage pillage the future bright!
It was somewhat sad to see so many oldsters on Live8 stage [in London] truly dominating the day with Razorlight being the rare ones to raise the flag for the nu-gen. It was bad because there are so many good new bands out there… We can now add The Subways with their excellent debut album, ‘Young For Eternity’.
The Subways have been hotly tipped for such a long time it is great to finally get their maiden disc. The trio’s been a-buzz for a while, as much for their music as for their pinup-ability: bassist Charlotte Cooper’s partiality for micro denim skirts is legendary and brothers Morgan are not bad looking, either. Alas, she dates frontman/guitarist Billy Lunn [Josh is behind the drums].
Their average age is 19 although you’d never guess it. This is strong, tough, rocktastic disc in a poppy way. There are elements of punk-rock blues that, with the two members dating, gives it The White Stripes’ frisson, although echoes of Ash, The Libertines and few older statesmen [Velvet U, Iggy Pop] are evident, with ambience that shouldn’t be alien to fans of The Beach Boys, My Bloody Valentine or JJ72. One suspects they listened to Nirvana and some New Wave [circa 1980s] but it is not overriding influence in their sound.
The glorious former single ‘Rock & Roll Queen’ is easily overshadowed by ‘garage-pop [mini-] symphonies’ that rock-the-limit on the title track, ‘Oh Yeah’ and ‘City Pavement’… Or, the epic ambition of ‘Somewhere’… They also know how to handle more sensitive material and ‘Mary’ comes out tops with its simple beauty, closely followed by acoustic driven psychedelia of ‘She Sun’, or the dreamy harmonies of ‘No Goodbyes’.
Raucous, exuberant, unpolished and insolently charming are The Subways’ traits that are beautifully captured by producer Ian Broudie (The Zutons, The Coral); ‘Young For Eternity’ is a roaring statement from a nu-skool band that refuses their creativity to be of a single aspect and prefer to create sound that veers away from the sonic-obsessions of their contemporaries… It also sports a spot-on title that comments on our fixation with ‘Uth-4ever’ whilst manages to take the pish outta males’ inherent malfunction that is the hurdle known as ‘arrested development’.
They hail from Welwyn Garden City and, having visited the place, it is hard to believe that from fairly quaint and dull homeground such exciting set of baker’s dozen songs [bonus is entitled ‘1am’] has emerged.
The Subways may have been formed to enter a local band competition [they won] but ‘Young For Eternity’ is brazenly brill!
8/10
SashaS
4-7-2005
The Subways album ‘Young For Eternity’ is released 04 July 2005 by City Pavement/Infectious
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