Travis - Ode to J.Smith

Red Telephone Box, Fontana

October 2, 2008, 10:39 PM

Views: 497   Comments: 3

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Perfect for the background.

This is an album that fades away while I’m doing other things, but as soon as I actually start to pay attention to the music, it starts to annoy me. I found it very easy to potter about and do other things while this album was on, but none of the tracks lured me back to the computer to find out the name of the specific track that was playing.

The music is pleasant enough, and is energetic enough to carry me though my daily tasks, and I’m glad I have plenty to do today. Usually I’m walking while listening to music, and I can tell that I would have very quickly turned this over had I been walking to work while listening to ‘Ode to J.Smith’.

‘The man who’ was the only Travis album I’d heard at any length before this one, and thus it was the only one that I liked. I did very much like that album, with it’s slightly ridiculous fun and optimistic sounding songs, where even songs like ‘Why does it always rain on me’ which has some very melancholy lyrics, still had enough bounce and singalongability. I don’t know what happened between now and then, maybe the Record Label cut of one off their toes every time they smiled, because this album doesn’t have a single smile in the whole thing. It’s sullen and moody and grown up. If someone can tell me what’s happened to this band in the last eight and a half years to explain such a change in tone, let me know.

Maybe they just hit puberty.

It’s said that each song on the album is “written about nameless characters or to nameless characters” but they seem to be about and to people I know nothing about, and the songs don’t tell me and I don’t really care about. It’s like watching a documentary where they never once tell you who they’re talking about.

Listen to this album: While doing something more interesting than picking your nose.

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