The Subways return to Brno with a new album

23 February 2023, 1:00
The Subways return to Brno with a new album

The British group The Subways are back on club stages. As part of their European tour for their latest album “Uncertain Joys”, the band will also visit the Brno club Fléda.

The Subways present their long-awaited album “Uncertain Joys” (2023) after an eight-year hiatus. As the band’s lead singer Billy mentions in an interview with The Sound Lab, this is a major musical shift from the traditional bass and guitar sound to experimentation with synthesizers. The band explores a number of topical themes in the twelve tracks. They address issues such as the role of the internet in today’s society and racial discrimination, as well as intimate matters concerning the singer’s personal life. The concert will take place on 25 March 2023 at 9:00 pm at the Fléda club.

The band started working on the new album before the coronavirus pandemic. But the first ideas for lyrics started earlier, during a break when Charlotte and Josh were busy with their family and Billy was studying at Cambridge University. “(...) because I’d spent so much time reading and writing essays, when I found the time to pick up the guitar, all these ideas that had sort of subconsciously built up just poured out of me. So when I graduated in 2019, I had material for about two albums that I wanted to go through with the rest of the band,” says Billy, explaining the making of the album to the Cambridge Independent.

“Uncertain Joys” is the first album to feature the contributions of new drummer Camille Phillips. She was first introduced to fans in 2021 as part of a tour to mark the 15th anniversary of her debut album “Young for Eternity”. The founding members of The Subways at the turn of the millennium were then teenagers Billy Lunn (vocals, guitar), Charlotte Cooper (vocals, bass) and Josh Morgan (drums). In 2020, Josh decided to leave the band for personal reasons and was replaced by Camille, a former member of the revivalist Ramones. Now, more than twenty years later, the band still confirms that they are quirky performers who can easily get their audience moving.

In their early days, the trio from Welwyn Garden City, England, played local clubs and recorded songs in a homemade studio. A major milestone that put the band on the map was the opportunity to play the Glastonbury festival in 2003. Two years later they released their first studio album, the highly acclaimed “Young for Eternity” (2005), featuring the successful hit Rock & Roll Queen. This was followed by “All or Nothing” (2008), “Money and Celebrity” (2011) and “The Subways” (2015).

Photo archive of Fléda club

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