Album Review: The Rubens - The Rubens

Tim Rogers once famously quipped that Jet's Nic Cester could sing the phone book and it would still sound great. Not sure if Tim has come across The Rubens yet, but when he does it'll be interesting to see what he thinks of Sam Margin's set of caramel-soaked pipes. Displaying simultaneous smoothness and urgency, Margin leads his brothers (and cousin) through this, The Rubens' much-anticipated debut with a level of bravado belying their relatively limited experience.

Plucked from relative obscurity late last year via triple j Unearthed, the Menangle boys landed on radars everywhere with slow burner, Lay It Down. Eight months later and it's album time, but you get the sense on opener, The Best We Got, that they're still very much transitioning. Margin spends the majority of the track riffing on the idea of finishing Year 12 with lines like “sweet 16 been and gone, 18 next year then we're done” belying, and almost railroading, a solid attempt at an epic opening.

All told, The Rubens are much more effective when they slow things down and play it all a little cooler. Never Be The Same is a brilliant piano-based lament and closer, Paddy, really nails their new-soul aesthetic. Elsewhere though, Stampy goes for a frenzied singalong that probably works great on stage but falls a little flat here and Elvis is a slab of Winehouse by way of The Black Keys that never really gets off the ground. Not to worry though, there is unlimited potential in what The Rubens do, and in Margin they possess a voice we'll be hearing for decades to come.