Music Under Fire

Travis is back at it again after soothing their fans last year with a Boy Who Had No Name, an album witten about lead vocalist Fran Healy's newborn son. Now that they're back on track after a 4 year lull prior to 2007. Their first single will be "Something Anything" off of their own and newly established Red Telephone Box label. Even more exhillarating is that their sixth album, Ode To J. Smith, will be bouncing off the walls one month from now (September 29th).

The Ode To J. Smith tracklisting will be:
01: Chinese Blues
02: J. Smith
03: Something Anything
04: Long Way Down
05: Broken Mirror
06: Last Words
07: Quite Free
08: Get Up
09: Friends
10: Song To Self
11: Before You Were Young

Healy and Co. added that this will be their edgiest album yet, and they may just be right judging from the video below. Their first single from the album, "Something Anything" features our guitar pal (Andy Dunlop), perplexed as he stares at his trusty guitar, only to soon grow 10+ feet tall and wail on the best guitar solo I've heard from Travis to date. Who knew they were capable of such raw guitarwork?

Healy added comments about the album name in a mixblog:

"The album is called Ode to J. Smith partly giving a heads up to the key song and partly because all the songs are written about nameless characters or to nameless characters."