The Subways – All Or Nothing

• 28th Jul 2008

The Subways are back with their sophomore album ‘All Or Nothing’. After a three year absence the stakes have been raised and expectations heightened. Have they managed to equal or perhaps even better their critically acclaimed debut ‘Young For Eternity’?

You get the impression that nothing could stand in the way of The Subways. Billy Lunn has fought and won his battle with nodules on his vocal chords (eventually leading to surgery) and dealt with the break up between himself and in band bassist and childhood sweetheart, Charlotte Cooper.

However, that’s not to say that they deserve the sympathy vote. There’s no whining or mulling over their tragedies, though there are times when Lunn’s lyrics allude to something a bit deeper and more personal. He’s certainly not holding back on the vocals either, his range is fantastic and he gives it his all, as the album title suggests.

‘All Or Nothing’ is full to the brim with confidence, heavy guitar riffs and manic drums. It’s definitely heavily punk influenced and has hints of Queens of The Stone Age and Eagles of Death Metal, although just a little bit too much of Boy Kill Boy and Panic At The Disco for my liking.

One of the stand out tracks on the album is ‘Turnaround’ it has a dirty, grunge bassline and some interesting girl/boy call and response lyrics. On ‘Girls and Boys’ it’s difficult to believe that there’s only three people in The Subways, there is a lot of noise and this track is likely to please fans of their earlier work as it’s extremely reminiscent of ‘Young For Eternity’.

Lunn gives himself a well earned rest on ‘Move To Newlyn’, acoustic simplicity combined with Cooper’s sunshine pop harmonies results in an unexpected pop gem from the normally, raucous band.

In general ‘All Or Nothing’ is a good album. The Subways have come back exhilarated and revitalised. However, with legendary producer Butch Vig at the helm I was expecting a lot more. He was, after all the man that helped define grunge, working with The Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth and most importantly Nirvana on ‘Nevermind’.

It just seems as though something’s missing but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Technically and lyrically they’re more than capable. Perhaps it’s got something to do with their age, they’re still so young with all of them under 23. They need to relax, chill out a bit, maybe even calm down. They need to stop panicking because despite the threats of it all getting whipped away from them, they’re still together and still making music. Have they allowed themselves the opportunity to really enjoy that fact?