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The Subways

By: Jessica Grose

It’s fitting that the Subways called their debut album Young For Eternity: They exude an adolescent zeal that’s worth bottling. It helps that the two of the three Subways, are under 21, and frontman Billy Lunn just reached that age this year. They’re still in the midst of their own heady youth, so their exuberance is natural, and not merely mimicking youthful behavior like a skeletal Mick Jagger.

Listening to Young For Eternity is like pulling records from the Subways’ shelves. The darling “Mary,” with its simplicity and schoolyard charms, is like the White Stripes’ “We Are Going to be Friends.” “Mary is my best friend,” Lunn sing-songs. “She makes me my tea / She lets me stay ’round her place / When there’s nowhere else to be.” The band channels Coldplay on ballads like “Lines of Light,” and the radio-ready single “Rock & Roll Queen” is straight up neo-garage, in the same vein as the Vines.

Bassist Charlotte Cooper duets with Lunn on several tracks, and her voice adds a depth to those songs that the sometimes overly simplistic Subways tend to need. Her edgy, somewhat raspy, yet still girlish voice makes “Lines of Light” into a touching lament about the frustrations of being a kid. “The seasons know / But they wont show, they won’t let go,” Cooper and Lunn sing together.

Perhaps their duets are so affecting because Charlotte and Billy are romantically linked in real life, recently engaged — no wonder the Subways’ debut gets an American release on Valentine’s Day.

The Subways will take their show on the road in March, kicking off their North American tour March 1 in Atlanta.

The Subways tour dates:

3/1, Atlanta, GA (The Loft)3/2, Chapel Hill, NC (Local 506/Cat’s Cradle)3/3, Philadelphia, PA (First Unitarian Church)3/4, Washington, DC (9:30 Club)3/7, New York, NY (Bowery Ballroom)3/8, Boston, MA (Paradise Rock Club)3/9, Montreal, QC (La Sala Rossa)3/11, Toronto, ON (Mod Club)3/12, Detroit, MI (Magic Stick)3/13, Cleveland, OH (Grog Shop)3/14, Chicago, IL (Empty Bottle)3/15, Kansas City, MO (Grand Emporium)3/19, Houston, TX (Meridian Red Room)3/20, Dallas, TX (Gypsy Tea Room)3/22, Tempe, AZ (Clubhouse)3/23, West Hollywood, CA (Troubadour)3/25, San Diego, CA (Epicentre)3/27, San Francisco, CA (Slims)3/28, Portland, OR (Doug Fir Lounge)3/29, Vancouver, BC (Richard’s on Richards)3/30, Seattle, WA (Crocodile Caf�)

The Subways official site