Travis
THE INVISIBLE BAND
(EPIC)

Well, these four melancholy Scots may be overstating their case a bit with the title of their third album. Sure, they might feel invisible here in the US, where the album that made them stars in Britain — 1999’s The Man Who (Epic) — never achieved the breakthrough that Coldplay have with a sound that isn’t all that different from Travis’s. Spin even picked Travis as one of the " most underrated " bands of 2000. But that’s just how it is for Britpop in this, the era of aggro rap rock and nü-metal. And it’s not as if The Invisible Band made any concessions to American audiences — if anything, it’s more preciously Britpop than The Man Who, an album that featured a very pretty, very Morrissey song called " Why Does It Always Rain on Me? "

The opening track and first single, " Sing, " urges a certain Nora to " Sing, sing, sing, sing/For the love you bring won’t mean a thing/Unless you sing, sing, sing, sing. " And no, it doesn’t appear that frontman Fran Healy’s kidding. In " Dear Diary " he asks, " What’s wrong with me " ; in " Flowers in the Window " he again serenades Nora, this time with the refrain " I love you so let’s watch the flowers grow. " Fortunately, Healy sings real nice in his best Radioheaded falsetto, and his bandmates come across with enough folkishly pop hooks (think late-’80s R.E.M.) to offset the occasional Hallmark moment.

Issue Date: June 21 - 28, 2001