So, second albums are supposed to be difficult, then? Maybe someone ought to tell Travis,
because The Man Who sounds like a thundering triumph.
| Album of the Week |
|
 |
Travis
The Man Who
(Independiente) |
While the general consensus round here is that Travis might be one of the loveliest excuses for
keeping faith in guitars, there remains a small, yet lippy contingent ready to dismiss them as soppy
AOR soppy oiks of the first degree.
Certainly, if it's rewrites of "U16 Girls" you're after, The Man Who is just about the last
place you're likely to find them. Here is an album imbued with an unsurprisingly more mature,
measured approach to their 1997 debut, Good Feeling. More mature maybe, but far from
ready to stock up on pipes and slippers. Grown up, but still a hundred years off growing old.
The comeback single, "Writing to Reach You," provides the bridge between Good Feeling
and The Man Who and spanning two disparate sets of intentions it ends up as the least
convincing thing on the whole record. Once out of the way, Travis can elaborate on how they're
not scared of great songs and big feelings, that's when you start to realise they're caught up in
something special.
| |
If you tolerate this....you'll love these: |
 |
Oasis
(What's the Story) Morning Glory
Creation
1995 |
| This is where Travis
get their chords... |
 |
Deacon Blue
Fellow Hoodlums
Columbia
1991 |
| ...And this is the
pining melancholy... |
 |
Joni Mitchell
Blue
Reprise
1971 |
| ...And this is the
canny art of crafting songs... |
"The Fear" and "As You Are" find Travis building bold, elegiac and very nearly overpowering
creations, instability held in check throughout the album by elegant, understanding production
from Nigel Godrich and Mike Hedges. The latter's studio chateau in France was, according to
guitarist Andy, responsible for "cheese, bread, tequila and watching shooting stars go across the
sky." Sack the food and you've got as good a distillation as any of the sound of the album.
There's really gorgeous stuff here.
Like on the sparkling new single, "Driftwood," an engaging take on romanticism, that comes
across like one of Noel's more purposeful ballads delivered by High Land, Hard Rain-era
Aztec Camera to a distant, folksy echo of Glen Campbell's "Wichita Lineman." Unless you want
something more specific.
"Luv" comes accompanied by a 47-piece orchestra, the sonic layers and the spelling of the title
hinting at the album's most dominant influence, that of John Lennon. Travis would have a job
persuading anyone that they've never listened to the Plastic Ono Band, bearing, as most of the
songs do, Lennon's pace and spaciness. Thankfully, there's a self-awareness running trough what
Travis do, the words of "Slide Show," which itself might be nodding towards "Seasons in the
Sun," insist that "There is no design for life/There's no devil's haircut in your mind/There's no
wonderwall to climb," ensuring that you end up wondering not which old canvas they're painting
on, but how they managed to mix such wonderful new colours. Where Good Feeling was
all spattergun swirls, the energy and inspiration here is harnessed into something classy and
bordering on classic.
Two very great moments.
A song called "Why Does It Always Rain On Me?" might be the best pop song Fran Healy has yet
written: melancholy and wistful, self-loathing turned inside-out under a tune to burst clouds.
And three minutes and fourteen seconds after the proper album has ended (3.14, that's pi, and it's
deliberate, Travis fact fans) there's the hidden track, "The Flashing Blue Light," an extraordinary
vignette of dislocation and domestic violence that leaves you breathless. And wondering how
much more yet Travis are capable of.
Double whatever we can imagine, I'd guess.
****
(4 out of 5)
Melody Maker
May 22, 1999
by Paul Mathur
