The Invisible Band

Travis possess the ability to make a perhapser out of the most opinionated commentator. On one hand, you have to appreciate their apparent humility (hence the title of this, their third album), a stressing of songs over shtick. On the other, I get queasy when Fran Healy professes himself happy to consider his band part of the service industry. I always thought rock ‘n’ roll was a bit more mysterious than catering or refuse collection.

But for the moment, let’s put ideological differences aside and give the music its due. The Invisible Band is a collection of eleven tunes, eight of whom are so pretty it would be churlish not to compliment them. This has everything to do with the writing rather than production techniques – in fact, one wonders if producer Nigel Godrich assigned these back to basics exercises to both Travis and The Divine Comedy as a reaction to Radiohead-aches.

The only nod to cosmeticism is Godrich’s stock selection of quasi-ambient keyboard sounds, most effectively deployed on ‘Afterglow’ and the coda of ‘The Humpty Dumpty Song’.

Elsewhere, the single ‘Sing’, the lilting ‘Flowers In The Window’ and bedsit ballads like ‘Dear Diary’ and ‘The Cage’ sound like they could’ve been written in Topanga Canyon anytime between 1970 and now – not always a bad thing.

Travis are a band you can’t get excited about until the records are actually playing, usually on the radio. Fran Healy doesn’t deal in doubletalk or cryptic riddling, but rather chooses the straightest line between two pressure points – few singers can deliver lines like “Out in the crowd/You are one in a million/And I love you so/Let’s watch the flowers grow” and sound genuinely affecting rather than in need of a smack in the chops.

Nice boys don’t play rock ‘n’ roll. They craft songs instead.