Travis

Travis always seemed ready to break onto a bigger stage internationally, and 1999's The Man Who seemed like the album about to push them further. That album tempered its rock tendencies with a more sensitive leaning, and it was precisely that limper sound that audiences grabbed onto—but with Coldplay, a band which before rushing to superstardom was sometimes written off as a sub-par Travis clone. (Never mind that Travis was tagged, too, as a lifter of Radiohead's more straightforward moments.)

So this new disc, Ode to J. Smith, finds the Scottish group turning back the clock to its mid-'90s output. For the first time since those more altogether rocking albums, bandleader Fran Healy and his boys wrote songs on electric guitar, and that instrument's immediacy presents itself, well, immediately on Ode to J. Smith. The track "J. Smith" opens bright and clear before a surprising choral interlude introduces some seriously muscular rock—Healy comes close to touching on Cobain yowls on this one (see also "Long Way Down"). That's a minor shock considering the band's recent drift towards restraint and prettiness, an approach not wholly abandoned here, as the tracks "Last Words" and "Quite Free" are a little like R.E.M. in a more contemplative mode, and heavy on mandolin, strings and chiming guitars.

But as has frequently been the case with Travis, the band still struggles with creating a coherent and independent identity. Sure, there's a lot of sound-sharing among the British rock crowd, but did the track "Friends" have to ape the Stones' "Gimme Shelter" so obviously? And the brooding sing-a-long single "Something Anything," written by bassist Dougie Payne, is about as Oasis-y as anything out there, including the new Oasis album. Travis may never fully be the rocking garage band it flirts with being, and Ode to J. Smith finds the group more reliable than revolutionary. It's good, certainly, but sometimes good is good enough, and sometimes it's not.

—Chris Hassiotis
11.17.2008

Considering that Travis has spent the years since 1999's The Man Who settling into a quiet, unperturbed groove, it comes as a bit of a relief to hear Travis open Ode to J. Smith with a rush of guitars on "Chinese Blues." For some bands, this surge of six strings may seem reserved but for Travis it's positively rude, a welcome attempt to reconnect to their Brit-pop roots, when they were seen as heirs to Oasis' lad-friendly rock. As it turns out, Travis spent more time floating in Radiohead's wake -- with their innate politeness at times turning them into Coldplay's cousins -- and they don't escape that spacy, tasteful vibe on Ode to J. Smith, spending as much time ruminating as rocking. Nevertheless, the uptick in guitars gives Travis some definition -- more along the lines of extra texture than muscle -- and this gives the album some added color, especially when compared to its gentle, sepia-toned predecessor The Boy with No Name, which was otherwise appealing. Ode isn't quite as strong song-wise as The Boy but it makes up for the difference with its deepened palette -- again, this palette may not be as rich as some of their peers, but compared to Travis' other work of the past decade, this is richer and livelier as sheer sonics go. Now if they could find a way to marry this feel to the songcraft of The Boy with No Name, they'd wind up with an album that fulfilled the promise of both Good Feeling and The Man Who. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide