Rating:

(WEA, 2006) The Subways’ US debut, Young For Eternity, comes with (as usual) enormous amounts of hype from across the Atlantic. It seems that anything that gets big in the UK gets REALLY BIG. Unfortunately, it can’t all live up to the hype. Young For Eternity is one of those discs that can’t quite reach the promised dizzying heights. The band plays a style of rock that recalls quite a few bands of the last decade and a half - there’s more than a bit of Nirvana, Oasis, Blur, Ash, and Supergrass in the “unique” sound of The Subways. One might accurately call them a slightly poppier Nine Black Alps. However, where the aforementioned bands (with the exclusion of Nine Blacks Alps) are reputed to make albums full of excellent songs, The Subways struggle some in that area. There are a few songs, such as the opening one-two punch of “I Want To Hear What You Have Got To Say” and “Holiday” or the rollicking love anthem of “With You,” that exhibit a near-ideal combination of rock energy and pop melodicism. However, the band takes several stabs at ballads that don’t quite work. The exception to that is album closer “Somewhere,” which builds nicely over it’s near-five minute length to the final climax of the album. Unfortunately, the album is split pretty evenly between highlights, clunkers, and mediocrities, none of which are helped by the lyrics, which range from pedestrian to bad (”Thank God for Dracula/He sucked the shit out of me”). At the end of the day, The Subways are nothing special, but they’re also not terrible, either. Plenty of kids will go out and buy Young For Eternity, and maybe the next Subways record, but there’s nothing here to suggest a long shelf-life for this record or the band.

1.  I Want To Hear What You Have Got To Say
2.  Holiday
3.  Rock & Roll Queen
4.  Mary
5.  Young For Eternity
6.  Lines of Lights
7.  Oh Yeah
8.  City Pavement
9.  No Goodbyes
10. With You
11. She Sun
12. Somewhere

Buy album

– Kevin

This 3-beetsreview was posted on February 18th, 2006. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.