SLEAZY, spiky, speedy and sexy, that’s the Subways, surely the most perfectly formed punk-pop trio, and certainly the best young group ever to have sprung from the environs of Welwyn Garden City. Comprising the brothers Billy Lunn (guitar/vocals) and Josh Morgan (drums), together with Lunn’s girlfriend, Charlotte Cooper (bass/vocals), the trio have been living in each other’s pockets for much of their teens, and their debut album, Young for Eternity (City Pavement/Infectious), bristles with that abrasive self-confidence which close family ties seem to foster (see the White Stripes, Oasis).
There are sunny, harmony choruses (No Goodbyes), a melancholy ballad of sorts (Lines of Light) and plenty of spectacularly raucous shout-outs (Oh Yeah, Rock & Roll Queen, the title track and others). A majority of the songs fail to break the three-minute barrier, a sure sign of a band in a hurry to prove themselves. What great stuff. They don’t make ‘em like this any more.
Oh, hang about, here come the Cribs, three brothers from Wakefield whose debut album, The New Fellas (Wichita), bristles with short, sharp, punk-pop songs such as Hey Scenesters! and I’m Alright Me, which somehow manage to cover the stylistic waterfront from Franz Ferdinand to the Libertines. This is great work too, although it goes to show that however hard you try these days there is no such thing as a one-off.
Having suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune in groups such as the Smashing Pumpkins and Zwan for long enough, Billy Corgan has belatedly set out to prove himself as a stand-alone talent with The Future Embrace (Warner Bros).
Unfortunately, he hasn’t done enough to compensate for the lack of a supporting cast. The opening track, All Things Change, sounds as if he has left the drum machine ticking over on its default setting while he limbers up with a succession of his favourite melodic tricks pulled more or less at random from the top of his head. That’s a slippery starting point, and by the time he gets to a gothic synth-pop makeover of the old Bee Gees song, To Love Somebody , the operation is locked into a pretty vicious downward spiral.
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Soft Machine, one of the most ingenious English groups to come out of the 1960s, were locked into a process of constant reinvention for a decade or more. Founded by drummer and singer Robert Wyatt, bass player Hugh Hopper and keyboard player Mike Ratledge, they began as psychedelic contemporaries of Pink Floyd, explored some of the quirkier realms of the rock avant-garde and ended up on the far reaches of the jazz fusion shores. The beautifully packaged Out-Bloody-Rageous — An Anthology 1967-1973 (Sony/BMG; two discs) sketches the outline of the first part of this extraordinary musical voyage with a sure touch. They really don’t make ‘em like this any more.