Album Review: The Rubens - The Rubens

Sam Margin, the gifted lead singer of The Rubens, provides the solid and arousing framework to this, the band's self-titled debut album. Channelling Rufus Wainwright to the point where he could be his very own protégé, Margin spins lyrics around his deep and mature voice and hypnotises the listener from the offset.

The bluesy soul nature of this album can trick the listener into the vision of an aged group of men wearing trilby hats and donning stylish dinner jackets. The fact that the band members responsible for the sounds are indeed a young (teenagers for the most part), stylish group of brothers (drummer Scott Baldwin excepted) can be unearthed in the upbeat choruses and constant experimentation with genres. The opening track The Best We Got provides a smooth piano riff as the initial introduction to the album, a style that unfortunately doesn't materialise elsewhere. More of the slow, soulful aesthetics of Lay It Down would be welcomed .

There is a sense that The Rubens will morph into the band that we all can see shimmering in the future but for this album, although an ambitious debut, the trialling and soul searching is still evident. But you can be assured that obscurity and the rapid pitfalls that envelop so many young bands will not be an issue for The Rubens. Once their musical traits and tastes have developed, and with the bonus of Margin's soulful voice at the helm, it is inevitable that there will be many more albums from these guys.