Midway through recording their second album under the auspices of Nirvana/Smashing Pumpkins producer Butch Vig at Conway Studios in LA, English pop-punk pups The Subways encountered a crisis. Singer Billy Lunn developed nodules on his vocal chords, resulting in postponed sessions. Upon recovery, he and his bandmates were galvanised with a sense of jeopardy that, more than the Small Faces classic, inspired the album title.
I’d well believe it – All Or Nothing is all business. The trio have come up with the goods: surging effervescent melodies, tight performances, loads of oomph, and just a smidgeon of emo angst. Vig has drilled them to within an inch of their lives, applying a socket wrench to the rhythm section of Charlotte Cooper and Josh Morgan and steroids to Lunn’s guitars. But there’s also plenty of pop nous, with every available hook plucked, polished and placed front and centre.
The tunes? Take your pick. The single ‘Girls & Boys’, ‘Kalifornia’, ‘Alright’, ‘I Won’t Let You Down’… the effect is akin to Charlotte-era Ash without the mucky metal fetish. They’re no one trick ponies either. A good half of the songs are characterised by almost Cure-like flanged instrumental bridges, there’s a brace of rather lovely acoustic-guitar-and-tambourine strumalongs, ‘Move To Newlyn’ and ‘Lostboy’, which evoke Teenage Fanclub by way of The La’s, a cinnamon-sprinkled summer love song called ‘Strawberry Blonde’, and even a nod to heads-down US West Coast hardcore in ‘Turnaround’.
Not a moment wasted then. All Or Nothing is a triumph of energy tempered with finesse.

Key Track: ‘Alright’