'The Man Who'

I've always considered Travis as the unpopular Coldplay. They both broke around the same time and each played a milquetoast version of either U2 (Coldplay) or Oasis (Travis). 

Then Coldplay continued to get more famous. Travis didn't get more famous at all. 

This is my first long listen to Travis and this album, at least, isn't terrible. Quite good actually. They're an odd band that's had an odd number of bad things happen to it. 

Early on, they won a contest only to have it oddly rescinded and they wound up not even on the list of Scottish bands to be considered. 

Lead singer Fran Healy had his grandfather die. Afterward, he went into a short seclusion and came back out with a totally new vision for his band. 

Later,  their bass player wound up diving into a shallow pool damaging his spinal cord and nearly drowning. 

Otherwise, they've had a relatively piddling career, making albums, touring and whatnot. Peaking, maybe, in 1999 with this album.