Travis - Ode to J. Smith

Travis' sixth studio album, Ode to J. Smith, is perhaps the band's most ambitious effort yet. The album marks a return to the rockier roots of the group's debut, Good Feeling, and the effort pays off - most of the time.

J. Smith abandons much of the swooning, swinging acoustic anthems fans have come to love for energetic and gritty rock songs. Amid this change, Travis recaptures the youthful energy of its earlier albums while still retaining the honest and beautiful songwriting of the band's most recent works.

Much of this combination can be seen in the album's first single, "Something Anything." It's a simple and catchy tune with honest lyrics, but the background rocks with heavy-sounding electric guitars. While lead singer Fran Healy sings the straightforward lines, "Something anything just to keep believing/ Just to keep me breathing for a moment longer," whining guitars are layered with brilliant backup vocals.

It's a more involved sound than Travis would normally produce, and it shows in the disc's most exemplary songs. Lead guitarist Andy Dunlop is never short of guitar riffs, and Neil Primrose's drums drive the intensity at the right moments. Also, J. Smith includes the most detailed vocal layering Travis has ever crafted.

Most times the efforts are very rewarding, like the jagged piano solo in leading track "Chinese Blues" or the rolling drums of "Get Up." Other effects feel like a stretch, such as the impromptu a cappella of (almost) title track "J. Smith," which takes away some of the vitality of an otherwise brilliant song.

But on the whole, Travis' experimental sounds pay off. Healy seems to find the edge in his voice in the thrilling and energetic masterpiece "Long Way Down." Toward the end of the short track, the band is not afraid to let the rhythm break down into a funky outro. It sounds playful and natural and reveals a band not afraid to let a song take an unconventional course.

Even though it's hit and miss for Travis' latest effort, the group's playfulness gives J. Smith its drive and definition. But while ambitious and fresh-sounding tunes "Long Way Down," "Chinese Blues" and "Last Words" conjure a coherent sound for J. Smith, some of the more timid tracks hinder the album's momentum.

For example, in the slow, swinging "Friends," Healy sings, "Friends/ Will never desert you/ Or turn against/ Friends/ Won't love you and leave you/ To mend the fence." The song's softer and more restrained lyrics and sounds feel very out of place and take away from the album's vigor.

The momentum drops off completely at the very end with the generic-sounding anthem "Before You Were Young" - a song that would sound more appropriate on a Coldplay album than it does on J. Smith.

And while "Before You Were Young" and "Friends" don't fit with the rockier sounds of J. Smith, other songs seem to be there only because they do fit. For example, "Broken Mirror" obviously fits and can find its place in the album, but it really is not a good enough song to contribute to the effect - it just takes up space.

But as a whole, J. Smith has enough kick to produce an exhilarating and fresh sound - a sound Travis has desperately needed. The successes of the album far outshine its setbacks and if the band's courage had persisted for the full length, Ode to J. Smith would be by far Travis' best album yet.

3.5/5 Stars

Snow Patrol - A Hundred Million Suns

A Hundred Million Suns, Snow Patrol's fifth studio album, ends with a 16-minute, three-part song called "The Lightning Strike." The idea is creative and the result is pleasing, but in terms of creativity and ambition, it comes too little and too late.

Suns' marks very little progress for Snow Patrol - the record's biggest problem. In fact, it feels more like a mere extension of the band's previous album, Eyes Open, than a separate and whole entity. The band has yet again decided to choose moody string-laden love ballads over the rockier sounds of the group's earlier works, and this time around, Snow Patrol's faster-paced songs don't have enough vigor to punctuate the album's gloomy setting.

This could be the sound of Snow Patrol attempting to recapture the success of the ever-popular "Chasing Cars," a song responsible for the band's peak in popularity. But while attempting to wind up more heart-throbbing masterpieces, Snow Patrol has allowed its newest effort to play out like a Grey's Anatomy soundtrack.

Collectively, the songs are written as one extremely vague love epic; they are filled with countless expressions of intimacy but they never reach any insight or definite point of view. It sounds like the band took different statements of longing from all the love-sick teenage bloggers in the world and strung them together.

For example, in the warped-sounding rock song "Engines," lead singer Gary Lightbody begins almost every line with the phrases: "You say you love me like the ... ," "I know I love you like the ... " or "I know you love me like the ... , " which is followed by some simile comparing love to a different cosmic object. Not only are these lyrics not inventive, but their repetition also gives the listener a sense there is little content to spread around - a sense gleaned from the album as a whole.

It's like butter spread over too much bread. When Lightbody runs out of words to sing, he repeats. Choruses and verses bleed into each other, electronics and strings build to a climax. Over and over again.

But when every song in an album is filled with a sort of crescendo effect, the album as a whole tends to forgo its own momentum. And without momentum, A Hundred Million Suns loses any sense of identity and becomes a forgettable endeavor.

Despite its setbacks, Suns isn't all bad. Lightbody has always been talented at writing tunes that stick from the first bar. Tracks such as "Crack the Shutters," "Take Back the City" and "Set Down Your Glass" are particularly catchy and contain at least enough content to keep listeners satisfied for a little while. Also, as mentioned before, much of the lengthy 16-minute finale works well and avoids the tedious mediocrity seen in the rest of the album.

In the middle of the empty spheres of A Hundred Million Suns, these songs just seem to fade into the background and become run-of-the-mill attempts. A Hundred Million Suns is not particularly bad, but the effect of very little substance combined with rambling repetition seems to only exhaust the listener.

Or, at the very least, provide the perfect soundtrack to a Thursday-night hospital drama.

2.5/5 Stars

IGOR

Pixar, the king of computer-animated features, decided adorable robots and superhero families appeal to children. And they were right. But the Weinstein Company took a different direction for Igor and thought children would respond well to mad science and jokes about murder.

Jumping from American Dad! to the silver screen, writer Chris McKenna peppers the film with morbid bits about brainwashing and blind orphans. It's a valiant effort with an ambitious concept, but tonally, Igor just implodes.

In the nightmarish comedy directed by Tony Leondis (Lilo and Stitch 2), John Cusack (War, Inc.) voices Igor. The hunchbacked, downtrodden lab assistant, despite coming from a race of servants, aspires to be the best evil scientist in the twisted land of Malaria. After his master is blown up in an experiment, Igor decides to take his chance and compete in the annual Evil Science Fair. He goes in pretty optimistically with an invention only God can compete with: life.

However, he soon realizes his plan for an intelligent and deadly monster has gone awry. Instead, he ends up with a giant, gentle-hearted Betty Boop look-alike.

Igor enlists the help of his two friends, a cynical rodent named Scamper (Steve Buscemi, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry) and an encased brain (Sean Hayes, Will & Grace) that is (ironically) very stupid. Meanwhile, the evil and scheming Dr. Schadenfreude (Eddie Izzard, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian) attempts to steal Igor's monster, thinking it is the destructive invention Igor intended.

Taking a page from Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, the film's production design is scattered with stitched faces and ghoulish characters. In Malaria, the sun doesn't shine, and everyone is encouraged to be evil. Kudos to the filmmakers for choosing a setting not littered with wide-eyed animals and the normal, pandering kiddie fare.

But the film's creativity extends only about as far as its premise, and falls short in its reliance on cliché characters. The movie's protagonist is especially typical - as an underdog with a can-do attitude, self-deprecating to a fault.

And while the circumstantial comedy is certainly inventive, it really isn't very funny. Igor seems hesitant to decide whether it's a smart, dark satire or another silly ride. Punchy one-liners and ironic situations - with Buscemi's character gerring the especialy clever lines -but never go belly-deep. Buscemi's character gets the especially clever lines. More times than not, though, laughing cues would have been helpful.

While most animated films contain humor that appeals simulataneously to adults and kids, Igor swings back and forth. Jokes about severed arms and James Lipton references sit side by side with typical physical and bathroom humor. With a little more consistency, Igor could have been a far more enjoyable rift on the Frankenstein legacy.

Although the characters aren't terribly engaging, Igor is very well cast. Cusack is a good fit for an underdog protagonist, and although it may be a terrible thing to say, Buscemi is a perfect choice for a sarcastic, jittery, bug-eyed rodent. Even contained in studio sound booths, the chemistry shines through between the two seasoned actors. Their comedic flare is dimmed only by the dour setting.

The movie's overall concept is both its greatest strength and greatest weakness. Igor's oddities and surprises are able to keep its audience interested. But in attempting to captivate both adults and kids, Igor fails to keep either fully enthralled. Too dark and sinister for youngsters and not intelligent enough for adults, the film never gets a true sense for who it wants to please most. Despite a strong cast and ample sarcasm, Igor slips into mediocrity - a promising invention gone wrong.

It's (almost) alive.

2.5/5 Stars

Wall-E (B+)

A waste allocation robot's typical routine would read as such: Clean up, compact, and organize trash. Make sure to keep all fascinating objects and always look out for the cockroach. Never forget your lunchbox – you might need it for storage. When the afternoon is over, return the day's catch back to home base, sunbathe, and watch old musicals. Sporks are complicated.

Wall-E is Pixar studio's 9th straight blockbuster following the success of Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Montser's Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, and Ratatouille. It is also their first movie that works well as a science fiction film. The story focuses on an eccentric and curious robot called Wall-E (stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth) who is left to clean up Earth's massive piles of trash after the humans leave on a luxurious space cruise. Wall-E and a single cockroach are the only beings inhabiting the planet when a sleek new robot named Eve (stands for Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) arrives looking for plant life. The two robots hit it off in their own way and are soon caught in a quirky and funny space adventure involving a fast food obsessed human race, defective robots, fire extinguishers, and a plant in a shoe.

As you can imagine from this summary, the story advances pretty sporadically. The plot's driving force is a series of random mishaps and occurrences that involve a character with only a vague goal of saving his damsel in distress. While inefficiency would kill most movies, it only seems to give Wall-E more charm. It matches the robot's spontaneous personality.

Like most animated films these days, Wall-E has a story line that appeals to both adults and kids. While kids enjoy talking robots and space odysseys, adults can be satisfied with interesting themes and intelligent situational comedy. But everyone loves that little robot. He is an infectious character with a delightful curiosity. This success is mainly due to Pixar's meticulous attention to detail. From Wall-E's complicated physical design full of mechanical eyebrow raises and fidgeting pronged fingers to his ridiculous mannerisms and habits – every bustling, tinkering part of him is brimming with personality. This is especially impressive considering the fact that he engages in very little dialogue. In fact both Wall-E and Eve are limited to mimicking, pointing, and a few words here and there. Neither of them even speaks a full sentence along the course of the movie, but it's surprisingly natural.

The movie does seem to drag at times but it's not the lack of dialogue that makes it seem slow. It's the lack of characters. Wall-E and Eve are the only major characters and their story lines are not busy enough to move the plotline at a good pace. This would have been a disastrous side effect for a 2-hour movie, but is only a minor setback for Wall-E, which clocks in at about 97 minutes. Despite this, Wall-E is an interesting science fiction film, a witty and disturbing satire on consumerism, and a cute animated love story all orbiting the curious whims of an adorable character. B+