Chris DeLine

The Subways are a young band from England that epitomize modern DIY principles. After releasing a series of successful singles and 7″s the band began recording using a home studio and uploading their songs to the internet. Within no time The Subways were being praised by the late John Peel and playing prime festivals like Glastonbury and Reading. Recently the band has found success in America, appearing on The OC on a number of occasions and experiencing a great amount of praise from a stint at SXSW. The three-piece group bring a raw feeling to a familiar sound with Young For Eternity; a strange marriage between Liam Gallagher and The Vines (please don’t take offense to either of those references until I can explain myself).

Through the album there comes a feeling that something explosive is coming out of these barely of age rockers (of age in the States at least). It’s from this feeling which comes the second of my two references, The Vines. There may not be many people who feel the same way, but when The Vines first hit it big in the States, the band had such a phenomenal sense of power while maintaining an unconcerned, remote profile. The comparison comes before the drugs and booze hit too hard, before the press hard taken their share and before the fans became bored with the MTV darlings that had once had a certain spark. That version of the band is what I hear when I hear Young For Eternity. The Subways grow from a solid bond from within that has allowed them to develop a tight, unbending energy. And for good reason, guitarist and lead vocalist Billy Lunn is engaged to bassist Charlotte Cooper. It was Lunn who started the band with drummer, and half-brother, Josh Morgan. That’s what one might call one hell of a closed knit circle.

I found myself in a pub in NYC this January speaking with a few guys who quickly revealed themselves as English. It had always been a question in my head as to whether Oasis was really as big as The Beatles. As the jukebox played on, my new friends’ opinions were made clear. Oasis, they told me, were as big as The Beatles. To a generation being raised on Oasis, it might be hard not to find a little Morning Glory flowing through you from time to time. Such is the case with songs like “No Goodbyes” and “Mary” in particular. The latter even sounds like something Gallagher might have penned, creating a story through long drawn-out British wails while blending with the short, choppy Noel-esque strumming. There’s a definite maybe (bad joke?) as to whether these similarities are really there or just in my mind, but what is certain is that The Subways deliver an album full of raw youthful energy.

[This post was first published by Culture Bully.]