Travis: Album is not a life-changing experience

It does confirm that Travis are the most 21st century of rock groups - and The Invisible Band is the musical equivalent of all the safe and boring products demanded by 21st century marketing strategies.

It is a round and shiny version of a spin-obsessed politician, an unadventurous film or a meaningless mobile phone ad - a victory of style over substance.

The paper-thin emotions these millennium men wheel out are so flimsy, unoriginal and insincere that it seems they have been conjured up just because 12 tracks of inoffensive instrumental guitar strumming would not go down very well.

Song titles include Pipe Dreams, Afterglow and Follow the Light - which all appear to be about some vague and false-sounding notion of fairy-tale love, or scheme-of-things anxiety.

In Flowers in the Wind, the chorus includes such nonsensical and horribly clich�d lyrics as: "Look at you now/Flowers in the window/Such a lovely day/And I hope you feel the same."

At least they can no longer be lumped in the "new Radiohead" bracket.

And while Coldplay may have been dismissed as bed-wetters, at least the listener got the impression that the emotion in their songs was real.

If you are looking for something nice to put on while you are surfing the web or reading the paper or doing the ironing, then The Invisible Band - which sounds great, by the way - would be perfect.

But no-one will fall in love with it. No-one will dance to it. And it will definitely change no-one's life.

The Invisible Band is released on 11 June (Independiente)