What an album!!! Brillant from the Subways

A brilliant follow up to YFE.
Improving on every aspect, they lyrics are great, the songs are better and the music is tighter.
Possibly the best album released this year.

The Subways have come along way since their first album “Young for Eternity and suffered many hardships that might have split lesser bands including the break up of the relationship between lead vocals/guitarist Billy Lunn and bassist Charlotte Cooper and the throat problems that culminated in surgery after which speaking let alone singing again was in question but here they are and along with drummer Josh Morgan they have produced a fantastic album.

To start with you might be forgiven for thinking this album has been loaded a little top heavy, with four great, loud, proud and rocking tracks to open with but ultimately you would be wrong. The first of these tracks, “Girls & Boys” is a great choice to open the album, loud and to the point it makes a great statement as for what follows. “Kalifornia” is a track in a similarly heavy vain before we slow up slightly with the more soulful “Alright”. Next comes my current favorite “Shake! Shake!” which features a fantastic bass intro before launching into a heavy, passionate and angry piece of music and leads us into the first of the slower, more tender tracks on the album – Move to Newlyn. Lyrically somewhat philosophical and hopeful, and musically softer it carries the album along nicely into its title track. All or nothing, more up-tempo than the previous song again brilliant lyrically the meaning of the song can be interpreted in many different ways the most obvious of which being that life is to short for regrets and really is “All or nothing”. I won’t let you down gets us well and truly rocking once more and is just as passionate lyrically if not more so than those that it follows. Turnaround is another fantastic out and out rocker of a song which features bassist/backing vocalist Charlotte Cooper take lead on the chorus and one of the best guitar riffs of the album. Obsession keeps the pace with yet more excellent rock riffing and passionate lyrics. Strawberry Blonde assumedly an ode from Billy Lunn to band mate and ex-girlfriend Charlotte is tender, loving and a beautiful piece of music starting slow building into another brilliant chorus before fading back into its slower beginnings. In the final two tracks we see more evidence of a recurring theme towards the end of this album of the tempo changing drastically from one song to the next Always tomorrow is faster, and rockier than Strawberry Blonde and yet closing track lost boy slows us down for the finish and seems to tell the story of a young man looking back on falling in love for the first time and does so fantastically. All or nothing is an album that this trio can be truly proud of, while their debut Young for Eternity never seemed to attract the attention and success that it and they deserved with this album The Subways should find that success and even if not they and their fans can rest satisfied that they have released the best album of 2008 so far.