Nada Surf Lucky by: Dean Van Nguyen Tue:05-Feb-08 Label: Barsuk Year: 2008 WB rating 21 out of 100

One hit wonders don’t just happen, per se. Most songwriters, after all, fancy themselves as geniuses. No band goes out to find their fame and fortune through just one statement. Generally one hit wonders fade away, back to their normal lives where they are haunted by that one song that refuses to go away. How this tag must hurt Nada Surf then, who are now five album veterans.

The song of course was ‘Popular’, the 1996 hit which struck a chord with disenchanted slackers everywhere. They may never shake their ‘one hit wonder’ tag, but then again they will never write a song as enduring as ‘Popular’. They have however learned to live with it, rebuilding themselves as a power pop trio.

The last album they released This Weight Is a Gift had the band directly addressing their one radio hit. “Maybe this weight was a gift” sang leading man Matthew Caws on the album’s brightest moment ‘Do It Again’, which can be read as a direct reference from the band to the monkey they carry on their back. Either way, the album signified a career highpoint for them, displaying a keen ear for the more melodic songwriting they had started on 2002’s Let Go. As well as ‘Do It Again’, there was ‘Always Love’ and ‘Blankest Year’ amongst others, songs that never left your head – not that you ever wanted them to. Nada Surf truly raised their game to a higher plateau, like a band possessed, craving respect and the recognition as a fully formed act for the 20th century, not doomed to be remembered second to the song that had largely overshadowed them. So really a record as good as The Weight of a Gift was as good as we could hope for. Unfortunately on Lucky Nada Surf demonstrate how not to write a pop song.

As the album title suggest, Lucky sounds like a band in high spirits, as though recorded over a lazy long weekend. The trio all seem happy to be there with each other, but the fire that was there on This Weight Is A Gift has truly been extinguished. By and large this is another album of guitar, bass and drum pop music that we’ve come to expect, but on this occasion the melodies fall flat, the subject matter is uninspiring and the interplay between the three members seems robotic. Tracks like ‘Weightlessness’ do little to offend the listener, nor do they linger in anyway. It’s a forgettable, unfulfilling experience.

Things finally come to life on the penultimate song ‘The Fox’, an all-round darker track that stretches the band outside their comfort zone and adds a twisted string section for good measure. Perhaps a hint at a change in pace for the future, but history tells us that when bands lose their hunger they rarely regain it, so maybe Nada Surf have jumped the ship; winding down a career that has seen them both under and overachieve.