All Or Nothing - The Subways

Josh Maule | 14 August 2008

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All Or Nothing
The Subways
Warner
2008

After winning an unsigned band competition in Glastonbury in 2004, UK band the Subways had their rock and roll career kick-started.

They have since toured the globe – even playing a show to hundreds of sweaty Sydneysiders at the Big Day Out in 2006. They’ve just released All Or Nothing – a 12-track selection of distorted riffs, and blissful harmonies.

There’s no doubt it is an album to be played loudly. Certainly not designed for dinner parties, it is a record which blasts hard – with the exception of a few stripped back numbers. Its bright melodies and rhythms will have you uncontrollably bopping your head.

If there is one particularly obvious thing about the album’s tone – it’s the optimism. If I was to throw a party to celebrate the start of summer I reckon I would get the Subways to come and play. During their rock moments the Subways sound like Grinspoon, the Foo Fighters or Eskimo Joe. In their quieter times they echo Greenday or Plain White Ts.

But lyrically there are some severely clichéd moments. From a cursory reading of the song titles – ‘Girls and Boys’; ‘Kalifornia’; ‘Alright’; ‘Shake! Shake!’ – you’d be forgiven for thinking All or Nothing was a rehash of every other rock ‘n’ roll album ever made. The kind of record you listen for the first time and think: “There is nothing new here”.

But if you open up the lyric booklet there are a few revealing words planted in there. Perhaps unsurprisingly most of them are to do with love. Take these for instance:

I could travel ten thousand miles
So I could escape your smile
Holding out my blood red heart
Hold my blood red empty heart

Taken from a song titled ‘Obsession’, the words paint a graphic picture of an anxious relationship. The painful desire to run away and escape the lover’s smile. The wrenched and battered heart. It reminds us of how so many people live. The constant desire for a change of lover and the broken heartedness that follows.

Then there are these words:

You’re the matador and I’m the bull
You’re the brass keyhole I fit into
You’re the wind and I’m the weathervane
You’re the strawberry blonde and I’m the grey

Titled ‘Strawberry Blonde’, this acoustic track speaks of the perfect match. The hand-in-glove type relationship which promises to work on every level. A love with no compromise. With no bad days.

Genesis chapter 3 is undoubtedly an unromantic verse to consider at this point, but it tells us why the “perfect match” is so unattainable. The Fall of Man gives us a context for why relationships are the way they are today. It shows us why human relationships are tainted with shame and conflict. While we still desire for relationships to be perfect, we may end up with a “blood red empty heart” if we don’t grapple with the fallen people we are.

I’d recommend All or Nothing, but only if your sounds system is up to it.