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Twelve years ago, a little-known band from Glasgow paid £600 to record their first single All I Wanna Do is Rock on their own label, which they called Red Telephone Box.
After selling more than ten million albums since then, the wheel has in a sense come full circle for Travis as they have revived the label to release their first album since leaving Independiente earlier this year.
Musically too Ode to J. Smith shows the band going back to basics, with a significant change of style from last year's cloyingly saccharine The Boy With No Name. With the guitars cranked up, the new album is noticeably more rocky and edgy than anything they've done since their early days.
Apparently the band's sixth studio album is their first to be written from electric guitar since their debut Good Feeling, and this shows strongly in the end result. Recorded in a fortnight, with more sense of urgency than usual, producer Emery Dobyns has delivered an admirably stripped-down and rough-edged sound. Front man Fran Healy's voice may seem as mellifluous as ever but lead guitarist Andy Dunlop certainly lets rip more than before, so that there is a mixture of textures.
The opening track Chinese Blues, a melancholy look at mortality, sounds a bit like an Oasis song with its bluesy guitar riffs. Originally released as a limited edition EP last year, J. Smith is a lean and muscular rocker, starting with two sparky guitar chords, but later unexpectedly interrupted by a Latin chorale (which just about works).
Current single Something Anything is the band's first not to be written by Healy - penned by bassist Dougie Payne it has a strong insistent bass line, which broodingly underpins a song about the desperate need to cling on to something after a failed love affair.
Long Way Down's rocking view of the downside of life features increasingly passionate vocals from Healy, which even lead him to scream at one point. The mean and moody atmosphere of Broken Mirror marks a change in tone, with Healy singing in a higher pitch about his fragmented reflection.
The next two tracks sound more like the Travis of recent years: the gentle Last Words is enhanced by mandolin and string quartet, while the guitars chime pleasantly in Quite Free.
Get Up is rhythmically driven by Neil Primrose's percussion, echoing the song's sentiment of pushing oneself onwards and upwards. Friends' beautiful laid-back melody more than compensates for the anodyne lyrics about the value of friendship. Song to Self brings an up tempo energy to the theme of loneliness in the final track of the album.
Of course they will never have the primal power of the Kings of Leon or the raw raunchiness of the White Stripes - don't expect them to transform into a garage band - and the trademark sweet melodies and jangly guitars are still there, but Ode to J. Smith will definitely surprise those who think of Travis as merely peddlers of bland pop.
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