Never mind the bollocks, the story here lies in marketing. This Hertfordshire trio stands about one million Internet hits away from enacting The Arctic Monkeys Rule, shooting straight up the charts compliments of the Google guys and Al Gore. Also like the Monkeys, the Subways shrewdly shy away from Vines-style megalomania or Chris Martin's brand of heavy-handed magnanimity while also remaining as stylistically vague as possible, resembling the last 15 years of rock residue rather than any one or two particular bands. Together with the Monkeys, these guys could start a movement to supersede the UK's Coldplay bloc with a legion of post-pubescent bands wielding cool record collections and above-average riffs. For now though, they're just another indie tabula rasa hoping for fans' nostalgia to fill in the blanks.
The biggest snag in the band's bubbly, youthful overthrow, as well as what pales them next to the Monkeys, lies in the album title's unfulfilled promise: For a bunch of college-aged rockers, the Subways sounds haggard and earnest. Blame it on the band's tame, cutesy nature (frontman Billy Lunn and bassist Charlotte Cooper are dating and have a Sonny & Cher call-and-response thing going on many tracks) or the soporific hand of the Coral and I Am Kloot producer Ian Broudie, but too often the rawk they bring feels terribly labored.
Case in point, opener "I Want to Hear What You Have Got to Say" follows the same soft intro/blaring chorus storyteller formula Franz minted with "Jacqueline", though the first-person plot/plea doesn't stick. The title track really exposes the adrenaline deficit as Lunn rips the riff from Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Date With the Night" for the song's flaccid climax. Of course, the album's not necessarily all limp mimicry and bark-over-bite attitude. "Holiday" takes a commendable stab at sneering, off-the-cuff Beatles hard rock á la Nirvana, and closer "Somewhere" bends if not breaks the Brit-rock stereotype with its chunky prog riffage and unconventional structuring.
Unfortunately, there's no messiah to lift up this ho-hum album up by its bootstraps. Instead we get the Anti-Christ, single "Rock N' Roll Queen", an allegedly tongue-in-cheek homage to Alice Cooper that has afforded the band an O.C. Mix spot in the U.S. and the highest chart position of their four Top 30 singles at home. Forget hipsters downloading eight different remixes of the track on their iPod Nanos, this single aims for high school football warmup mixes and keg-stand background music. Not that there's anything wrong with Jock Jams, but sheesh, who wants a poor man's Libertines album with one foot in the locker room door?
