One of the troubles of starting your career as teenage upstarts who named their debut album Young for Eternity is that you've set yourself up to have trouble growing up in public. The Subways were teens when they started the group in 2000, but in the year 2023 they're pushing middle age, and the sort of rock & roll rebellion that was their birthright when they released their first LP in 2005 no longer looks as comfortable on them. The band's fifth studio album, 2023's Uncertain Joys, subtly acknowledges they're not quite the folks they used to be, and in more ways than one -- this is their first LP since original drummer and co-founder Josh Morgan left and new timekeeper Camille Phillips came aboard. The music is still rooted in guitar-based rock that nods to punk, grunge, '90s alternative rock, and Brit-pop, yet the subtle, audible use of Auto-Tune on the vocals and the poppy melodies and keyboard accents on "Love Waiting on You" and the title cut, the acoustic guitar sheen on "Lavender Amelie," and the heart-on-sleeve power ballad affectations of "Joli Coeur" make this feel like the work of people who want to add a few more tricks to their repertoire. (And the attempted social commentary of "Influencer Killed the Rock Star" has just a touch of "Old Man Yells at Cloud" in it, as they rant about those damn kids bucking for digital fame.) That said, Uncertain Joys is the work of a band whose comfort zone is still bashing it out in time-honored power trio fashion, sounding just a bit less energetic but just as swaggering as ever on numbers like "You Kill My Cool," "Black Wax," and "Futures." Guitarist and lead singer Billy Lunn and bassist and backing vocalist Charlotte Cooper are no less confident than they were on 2015's The Subways, and Camille Phillips shows off a finesse and punch on the drums that's more than welcome. The Subways are still good at what they've been doing for the better part of two decades on Uncertain Joys, but it seems they don't think that's quite enough, and that's the rub – their pop moves are well-crafted, but it's when they follow formula that they really come to life, and that's a paradox that doesn't quite resolve itself in these 12 tunes. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

1		You Kill My Cool
2		Love Waiting on You
3		Uncertain Joys
4		Incantation
5		Black Wax
6		Lavender Amelie
7		Fight
8		Influencer Killed the Rock Star
9		Swanky Al
10		The Devil and Me
11		Joli Coeur
12		Futures

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