“People die, la de da/ It gives the day a certain je ne sais quoi,” Travis Morrison sings on his debut solo album “Travistan.”
The former front man of the Washington D.C. based indie-rock band Dismemberment Plan, Morrison works his quirky, political, narrative lyrics into a musical pattern not conducive to labeling.
Morrison has created a record that lives and dies on the audience’s acceptance or rejection of his lyrics. Each of the record’s 13 tracks tell a story, a fusion of social commentary and Morrison’s own eternal strife with a healthy dose of his sense of humor. In “Song for the Orca” he sings, “This song is for the gator, laying in the roadside cage in FLA/ You’ll tear the cracker to shreds someday.”
As idioms like these consume much of the lyrical space of the album, some lyrics form awkwardly controversial wording: “Moses could be a bitch with a capital B/ Talk a bunch of weird shit and you had to agree/ A bunch of Jewish salves with one foot in their graves.” Other religious references appear – in “Get me off this coin C,” he references the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust and a man named George who was put in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The lyrics pull in the listener the same way people are drawn to watch an auto accident on the highway. Morrison seems to be attempting a unique songwriting technique by combing the stream of consciousness narrative style of J.D. Salinger with a knack for the absurd wording reminiscent of Frank Zappa.
Musically there is a contrast of overly produced synthesizer sounds with raw, basic drum beats made popular by Meg White of the White Stripes; tracks such as “Born in ’72” and “People Die” lack a catchy guitar riff, which is replaced by simple-yet-catchy drumming. The uses of the computer-like sounds cause many of the tracks to become musically cluttered, especially in the final, secret track.
The short acoustic “Get me off this coin” is broken into four segments, labeled A-C, throughout the album. in each version, Morrison takes on a historical figure in American history and speaks for them saying “Take me off of this coin, ’cause I don’t like either side.” Although the lyrics have no cohesive bond to the rest of the tracks on Travistan, each appearance of the song brings the illusion of unity to the album.
The album’s best two songs, “The Word Con” and “Angry Angel,” appear back-to-back at the end of the album. The former captures a recognizable rock structure; a full sounding guitar, a flowing, upbeat tempo and a verse-chorus-verse structure. “Angel” is the album’s only true ballad – complete with a solo piano intro and a smooth, intimate vocal performance. The song takes on a mystical feeling when a spooky synthesizer arrangement is added.
Morrison’s vocal range is not particularly impressive, but his ability to make the most of his range takes the pressure off his voice. In “Change,” he is able to relay his intended anxious yearning when repeating the line: “Check your pulse/ now its heart attack time,” to close the song.
The lyrics create enough interest to make up for the average-at-best music on Travistan; Morrison’s experimental wording will leave some feeling inspired and others utterly confused.
