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| EP reviews |
All I Want To Do Is Rock
Travis go to the pub.
You can tell. All they want to do is rock, and blimey, they do in this
grit-pocked emotional power-pop classic canyon, oddly reminiscent of 'The Air
That I Breathe' or something in the 70's. Anyway, that was a classic and this
will fair crumble the terraces asunder and have grown men doing the
standing-still-with-one-arm-thrust-to-the-sky dance down the indie-hope any day
now, thus ensuring the end-of-evening-fools-of-oneself scenario essential for
any proper Big Night Out. That's quite a recommendation, incidentally.
--Sylvia Patterson
(NME, 7 June 1997)
Tied to the 90's
Jamie (Theakston): We love Travis, I went to see them at the 100 Club and Noel was there. With his retard brother.
Jayne (Middlemiss): Don't you dare say that! He's very funny and lovely.
MM: And Travis?
Jamie: I was stood next to Noel and said, 'All right, aren't they?' to him and he said, 'Yes'.
Jayne: When you tell a story, Jamie, try to have a point or make it interesting.
Anyway, Travis: A really good band and a really good song. There you are.
Jamie: I can do no more than tell you a Noel Gallagher story and that their keyboard player played with The Pretenders and Robbie Williams.
MM: But that's not an opinion, is it?
Jamie: No, I haven't really got the hang of this single reviewing, have I?
MM: Well, it sounds like the kind of pop record which abounded in the early Seventies: a stomping beat, some shouted "heys", a big, lolloping rabbit of a tune with a stupid grin
and saliva drooling from its mouth. If you know what I mean. It sounds a bit
like The Strawbs, whom I'm sure none of you will remember.
--Mark Roland
(Melody Maker, 9 August 1997)
Happy
You're not allowed to write songs like
this these days. I mean, it's actually optimistic! It's a stompy euphoric anthem
about being in love! It's got a singalong chorus! Oh alright then, Oasis have
sort of been writing them for a few years now, but they deal more in vague
universal sentiments rather than articulating the situation the way Fran Healy
does. There's nothing melodramatic about this. There's none of your
instant-epic-just-add-strings pseudo-ambition. There's no terrace bravado
required to make it an anthem. It cuts to the quick, tells it like it is, ups
and downs included, and you wonder why people have to make such a song and dance
out of writing a tune with some words. "I'm so happy, coz you're so happy"--well, exactly.
--Johnny Cigarettes
(NME, 11 October 1997)
Writing to Reach You
The opening chords may nod to the song featured in the lines "The radio
is playing all the usual/ And what's a wonderwall anyway," but Oasis's
own ballads haven't had this much yearning grace for some while now. Having
previously resembled makeweight underlings, Travis now excel, with Fran
Healy's true frontman potential shining through. Helpfully enough, it also
shows Embrace what could happen if they brought in a decent singer.
(Select, April 1999)
p.s. We're assuming that this is the same song, even though Select chose to use the title "Trying to Reach You."
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