Travis’ rocky career output has been mired with both success and defeat. A few scattered catchy tracks can be found through their catalog, and their first two long players were good almost all the way through. Credited for helping ignite the new UK pop explosion (Coldplay, Snow Patrol, Razorlight, Keane, et al), they’ve also lost a lot of ground to their peers and their efforts in the new millennium could only be described as disappointing (their last one, The Boy with No Name, was barely even listenable). They could be best described as a band that wanted to be heartfelt indie pop/rock but sounded a lot more like run-of-the-mill adult contemporary. But they’ve promised that on their sixth LP, Ode to J. Smith, they were going to up the edgy rock n’ roll quotient. Success is debatable, of course, but this album has about as much edge as a wooden spoon.
Most of J. Smith ignores distinguished guitar riffs in favor of long, muddled washes of gently fuzzy distortion. They let the percussion drive the songs, which is an effective if transparent way to keep the rhythms thumping without bothering to craft proper pop hooks. J. Smith was apparently recorded in a hurry (maybe to rinse away the bitter taste of The Boy with No Name?) and it shows. The results are immediate but the memories don’t linger. It floats by for little over half-an-hour and leaves nothing but a few vague thoughts. The recollections lean towards the negative, mostly in the vein of “Is that it?” No song is embarrassingly bad, but at the same time, no song truly stands out as something special.
“Chinese Blues” opens dramatically with windmill conductor stingers and a bluesy riff from Clapton’s songbook, but is far too half-hearted in its performance after that—dropping the riff for an unexceptional electric hum blanket doesn’t work in their favor. Aside from a section where keys take center stage, it’s too much like a murky trip through latter-day Oasis. “J. Smith” keeps promising something bigger as it builds to a climax…but then it arrives, a rather laughable vocal showering of a choir halfway between an apocalyptic goth nightmare and the Trans Siberian Orchestra; one of the few memorable moments on the album, but implausible instead of noteworthy. They return to the Gallagher brothers with “Long Way Down,” but the performance is slack again and the arrangement uncomfortably clumsy.
With twenty-four seconds remaining on that fourth song, the album ended. It seems that the record promoters (who shipped a clearly ripped and burned version of the album packaged in a nondescript diamond case) didn’t bother to ensure the quality of the product when they sent it to JustPressPlay*. I considered letting that be that and scrapping the review. But no matter how unimpressed I was, there was nothing inordinately awful about it and I’m ever hopeful that a seemingly mediocre album will emerge a “grower.” Sadly, after attaining a good copy, I discovered that while it didn’t get worse, it didn’t get much better either—even on the third listen, which was enough for me.
“Last Words” and “Quite Free” are both patchwork 70s theatrical/pompous (depending on your perspective) rock numbers, borrowing from Queen, ELO, Chicago and Roxy Music, but while the best and worst of some of those groups were memorably great and awful (read: middle two), Travis’ take inspires little more than a shrug. “Friends” echoes even earlier to a weird hybrid of the Kinks and the Stones, only…again…given an Oasis polish. “Song to Self” fares a little better, thanks to a solid repeating chorus, but the lumpy nature of the lyrics—“Pictures in your heart/Out of focus torn apart/Picture me, I picture you/Outside the moon is shining”—rings hollow.
Indeed, much of the blame of Ode to J. Smith’s failures can comfortably be rested upon frontman, Fran Healy. Musically, J. Smith isn’t going to inspire too many up-and-comers, but Andy Dunlop’s guitar workouts (even when they’re pushed to the background), Doug Payne’s bass and Neil Primrose’s display with the sticks aren’t bad; they do solid if not noticeably impressive work. But Healy never had the best of voices—it’s timorous and emotionally flat—and his lyrical constructs rarely rise above pedestrian. Some particularly dreary efforts: “In the days before you were young/We used to sit in the morning sun/We used to turn the radio on/What happened?/We'd see our lies in the eyes of fate/And take our cradles to the grave/But even then we're never saved/From danger,” on “Before You Were Young” and “I'm feeling/Like a little ship/Out on the ocean/I need a little love/And a hand to hold/Somewhere,” from “Get Up.” The LP is supposed to be a concept album of sorts, all centered around the fictional J. Smith, but the words presented are vexingly nondescript; I know as little of this J. Smith now as I did before pressing play.
Travis’ recent softer rock oeuvre was getting a bit tiresome, but they aim to play harder on Ode to J. Smith. Yet they don’t have a firm grasp of the fundamental dynamics that make up a good rock song. These songs are repetitively bland, rarely standing out for better or worse. Instead of being heavy, they just turn up the distortion a bit. And without rich melodies and sharp hooks, it’s mostly just faintly tuneful background noise for Healy to take center stage against. If he had something substantial to say, it might have been a noteworthy effort, but instead we’re left with a vaguely humdrum encounter with a band that’s seen better and worse days. They might return to form in the future but that day hasn’t arrived yet.
*[Edit 11/08] I eventually received an actual copy of the album in the mail. Doesn't improve the music, but the album art has a spare majesty.
"Ode to J. Smith" is on sale November 4, 2008 from Red Telephone Box.
