Shona Winfrey's Reviews

Travis
The Man Who

They're young, they're cute, they're from Wales...and they want to be Oasis. I remember Travis from three years back, with their 'All I Wanna Do Is Rock' (at least I think that was the name of it) single. I have a close friend who happens to be a young, English male and he'd practically wet himself when he heard it. He thought it was that funny, and would tell me often "That's so cheesy!" and call Travis "NoelRockers"---his term for all non-threatening guitar popsters who hail from the UK and their fans alike.

Imagine my alarm then, a couple years hence, when he up and recommends Travis to me as a great example of melodic British pop and tells me "You'll love that album. Buy it." I did buy it. I don't love it. I never have "loved" it. "The Man Who" is a pleasant record, and by that, I mean it's innocuous. One can put it on and ignore it completely once the first three tracks are complete. And make no mistake: whoever picked the track order for this record is an unparalleled marketing genius, because if the rest of the album had played out to the promise of "Writing to Reach You", "The Fear", and the old-skool Radiohead-ish vibe of "As You Are", there'd be a masterpiece of an album here. Unfortunately, once sucked in by those three tunes, I've decided the rest of the album gets by on sheer hype. It goes flatter than a three-days-open bottle of champagne, and rarely bubbles back up to the original spark.

The lyrics are pedestrian for the most part, and by God, Travis really sound like Oasis in the latter band's worst moments, but if I want to listen to Oasis, I've already got Oasis records, thankyouverymuch. The Gallagher worship is blantant to the point of absurdity. There exist on this record actual mentions of the word/object "wonderwall" in at least two songs, and Beatlesesque guitar work galore. Neither of these two components explain the adoration this band has received from the British music press.

While it is an average good record, and sometimes very pretty, it's one that could be simply relegated to unannoying background music. There's nothing new nor interesting here, only a rehashing of things already accomplished and done better in decades past as well as the one just preceding the album's release.

My final eval: "Oasis playing while Thom Yorke sings, minus the grit and grime and weirdness of the originals" which could read "Unaffected pop for the not-so-adventurous amongst us". No crunch, no angst, no ugliness. Not memorable, I fear, and it feels just plain boring---if you want a poor-quality, latter-day Beatles-album rip off, here it is. I'd rather listen to Liam Gallagher growl and snarl his way through "Supersonic" which at least felt a bit scary compared to this colorless, bland, mushy (but not entirely unlikeable) bowl of oatmeal called Travis.

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