A healthy dose of skepticism should be mandatory to anyone confronting a self-released, self-titled debut album (in a hand-made cardboard sleeve no less!). But just how many times does one have to go through the tired routine of prejudging an album by its package to know that these unassuming DIY albums are often the most rewarding listening experiences?
Travels, the band, is Anar Badalov and Mona Elliott, who previously were parts of Metal Hearts and Victory at Sea, respectively. Recorded under arduous conditions (Elliott was being treated for breast cancer during its conception and recording), Travels, the album, is a lesson in careful writing and economic playing that lets emotions emerge without the need for melodramatic and superfluous flourishes. Instead, we are treated to passionate performances that are so assured and spontaneous that it seems as if the two are living their lives in front of the microphone and 4-track.
If it were not evident from my over-polishing of Travels' apples above, great moments are plenty on this record. When the initially creeping "The Smell of Kerosene" finally breaks, it makes you feel like you've just stepped off some sort of anti-gravity ride at the fair and back on terra firma. "Hearts Racing" doesn't have much to it at first, with its molasses beat, clanging chords, and lone voice, but it swells into an addictive track that has every inch the emotion and feel of an over-layered Radiohead song. "People Sleep" is another doozy that for some reason reminds me of a 1970s throwback track, but with the sappy replaced by the beefy via great pace, sweet geetar, and hypnotic automaton drum programming. "There is Movement" knowingly apes "The House of the Rising Sun" in chordage but thankfully comes out smelling like roses rather than the discarded leavings of (A)nimals.
With such a frugality of instruments at play (voices, guitars, and a drum machine for the most part), Travels should be treading similar lo-fi waters as any number of bands you care to mention. Instead, the duo outdistance many usual suspects with stronger strokes and cuter whip-kicks. There are no extreme twists and turns on Travels, but just about everything is unexpected, even if just small, smart changes in singing, beats, and riffs. With so little going on, the cagey and spidery guitar lines are pushed to the forefront (which I love on this album), and the vocals are pushed into your face and then right down your throat (which I love even more).
You can hear lyrics like "I'm not afraid to die/ I'm afraid of living without you" everyday, but it is rare that you can believe in the person singing it. This urgency of living in open honesty is captured everywhere on this disc, from the gorgeous opener "Golden Sun" to the closing "Olivia Hurt (Desolation in My Heart)," in which Badalov sounds like he is sitting up straight in bed reciting this heartfelt poem to his sweetheart Elliott at what must be a most difficult time. Better yet, on "Sixty Five and Sunny," which contains the world-beating "When you were sick my love was thick as honey/ We cured your cancer with romance not money/ So let's sleep in and ride down to the river/ Cause you feel great, and I feel even better," they sound like they are making up the same lyrics at the same time while sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. Travels has a creepily-in-sync mood to it, but it is the right kind of unease.
So, what we have in Travels is a safe house in a world of confusion, and despite the scant furnishings, it has plenty of ornamental trappings to keep things more than interesting and entertaining. Intimate and intense, with daring dialogue and characters, Travels is an unpolished but compassionate gem of a pop album, and something we all dearly need more of in our lives.
1. Golden Sun
2. The Smell of Kerosene
3. Sixty Five and Sunny
4. People Sleep
5. Isabelle
6. There Is Movement
7. Love I Could Not Afford
8. Friends in Quotes
9. Hearts Racing
10. Olivia Hurt (Desolation in My Heart)
More about: Travels
