Every day, sinking in the quicksand

Continuing my trip back through the 2003 album charts.

19/10/03 : 12 Memories - Travis

I quite liked The Man Who and the follow-up The Invisible Band, but after that I think I just didn't feel the need to investigate any more Travis ever. So who knows what we've got here?

Hmmm, it's OK, I guess - but for me there's absolutely nothing here to drag you away from either of its predecessors. The songs aren't as upbeat and they don't have the hook of their earlier stuff and I'd also say Fran's singing often isn't great, so I just can't imagine it got too many repeat listens. One for the hardcore Travisites only, I suspect - although having said all that, I actually quite liked "Walking Down The Hill" which was the final track (apart from the secret hidden one) which had quite a nice U2ish feel to it (as does the album cover - it's a cross between The Joshua Tree and Pop)

We're at #3 in the chart with a new entry this week on the start of a fourteen week run, with this being as high as it got. The rest of the top five were Dido, a Sheryl Crow best-of, The Darkness and a Robbie Williams live album and the next highest new entry is Daniel O'Donnell (#11) who I've managed to avoid so far, despite a few near misses.

Wikipedia tells me this is a much more grown-up than their silly early ones - that's me told, eh? It being darker than their previous offerings probably isn't that surprising because Fran Healy was suffering from clinical depression and Neil Primrose (the drummer) had suffered a severe spinal injury. The critics (and Elton John, apparently) liked the album - commercially it was a bit of a setback, but it still did well enough globally with its downbeat nature going down well in Scandinavia (obviously) and it even getting to #41 in the US. 

"Customers also listened to" Keane, Starsailor, Embrace and Snow Patrol - yup, a definite thread running through all of those. I can't say I loved this, but I admire them doing their own thing - and they're still doing it, with their latest album getting to #4 just last year.

12/10/03 - Glad I caught up with this one
26/10/03 - Bang average