The day Fran Healy and the boys went to number one in the album charts with 'The Man Who' they were sixth on the bill at the V99 festival and took to the stage at around 3.45pm. Such was the slow burning fuse of their world domination (well the UK albums chart anyway), that the record had been in the shops for 13 weeks already.
Hype, bluster, marketing and a fawning media were nowhere to be seen back then. Instead we had the Healy knack of writing downbeat pop classics and a singles market that catapulted them into the top ten on a regular basis. People like you and me - and radio - liked them goddamit.
Like Coldplay in their wake, Fran, Dougie, Neil and Andy must have been baffled. Three hundred gigs later they must have started wondering, a) how come they'd hit such a chord with the masses and, b) how the hell would they do it again?
And yet Travis are in good company. If Queen and Status Quo were the rock bands that Prince Charles could like, if the 'Should I Stay Or Should I Go' era Clash were the punk band nobody could object to, if Sharleen's Texas are the 'sexy' white soul band that every Gap shop assistant will pay to go and see, then Travis are the indie pop band who make you feel it must be safe to go to a rock festival. They are uncomplicated, unchallenging, the safe option. They are the £5 bottle of Aussie Chardonnay in rock's Oddbins. Only a fool wouldn't buy it.
And what's wrong with that? Well nothing - probably. It's just that having lived with 'The Invisible Band' for a month you can't help feeling that maybe there's something a little more interesting locked away inside Travis somewhere. Fran sings gorgeously, Nigel Godrich applies his understated, magnolia production wash, but three albums in you can be forgiven for expecting a little more confidence, boldness... something.
Having said all that, some of these songs are fantatsic. 'Side' is 'Driftwood''s sulky brother with a chorus that will be blaring out of your radio all summer, while 'The Cage' boasts a classic Travis melody and Fran's choirboy-on-Bensons vocal on a haunting chorus.
'Flowers In The Window' sounds like Ocean Colour Scene without the solos - its late 60s chorus all but demanding a suede tie and a lift home on a Vespa GS 150. Nice though. 'Follow The Light' chimes along convincingly but as the guitar layers build towards the chorus, and an apologetic snap of feedback pops its head up for a second, you just wish for once that Andy would let rip and give it some - like he does when they play 'All I Want To Do Is Rock'.
'Afterglow' raises some interesting sonic questions. Its gentle thrum for once betrays the limitations of the guitar, bass and drum backing for Fran's loosest of vocal forays - what would it have sounded like with just piano accompaniment, Nick Cave stylee? A trick missed for the sake of including the whole band perhaps. At least the folky, duvet-day ballad, 'Indefinitely' is dusted with an economic, if classy, string arrangement but by now the pace of the album's final third has been set - in stone.
"And I feel safe, so safe" Fran sings through, er... 'Safe'. No surprise there. 'The Invisible Band' is going to be a huge album, sales wise, backed by all the promotion dollars and media hype that its predecessor lacked. Creatively however, it's not moved forward from 'The Man Who' enough to convince those of us who were already getting bored with the setlist at Glastonbury last year. I suspect Travis may feel the same.
To pre-order 'The Invisible Band' CLICK HERE.
