Today's Music of the Day is Travis, The Boy With No Name. I've been listening to this album off and on for a couple weeks, and I'm still not entirely sure what to think of it. It's definitely Travis, wistful, emotional, somber music, maybe too much so at times. I kind of like it and I kind of don't. I don't think it really has the depth of some other music I enjoy, even some of the more 'pop' music like Okkervil River, certainly not the New Pornographers. I think the greatest fault of this sweetly sounding music is that it doesn't push quite hard enough. It just gets to a certain degree of release in the music and is content to settle there, without daring to reach any greater height.
The instrumentation is decent in this album; the band manages to incorporate strings, piano, drums, guitar, bass, and even banjo to an enviable degree. The singer's voice isn't bad by any means though it seems to be limited, maybe somewhat by the style of music. I guess if I had to compare Travis to any contemporary bands, the obvious choice would be Coldplay, though Travis isn't probably as polished or quite as bland. Recent U2 would also be a fair comparison, maybe if you took out the Edge (this not being a good thing, likely). So to summarize, Travis is a fair band, probably too gentle for my taste, but not atrocious or offensive. They have a good sense of musical soundscape even if they are a little too constrained by the boundaries of familiarity. I guess they're a band that I will tolerate but wouldn't ever really be interested in. (They do have a couple songs I like though.)
In Other News:
Everyone at my College is on break this week, except for me and one other person, I think.