Featured Video
Artist Bio
"Lucky", the title of Nada Surf's fifth album, is at once literal and ironic. Like the songs that singer- guitarist Matthew Caws, bassist Daniel Lorca and drummer Ira Elliot crafted for their previous two albums, "Let Go" (2003) and "The Weight Is A Gift" (2005), "Lucky" is filled with images of restlessness, longing and the elusiveness of love. Yet the band counterbalances the lyrical bittersweetness with a musical buoyancy. Intimate songs become in-it-together anthems, thanks to the chiming guitars, propulsive rhythms, and the emotional candor in Caws' vocals. A song like "Beautiful Beat" segues from a sparsely arranged, confessional first verse into a harmony-laden chorus and reaches multi-layered, canon-like proportions before the track fades out. If Caws is often suggesting that romance and resolution may still be an inch or two out of reach, he's also proffering immediate musical solace. Turn up the volume, hit the repeat button, and your troubles, for a blissful three minutes or so, will disappear.
The three members of Nada Surf have played together now for a dozen years. They've survived overnight major-label success and the inevitable morning-after bleariness, persevering past obstacles that would have sunk a less resilient combo to become one of America's most truly independent bands. Experience has only made their work richer, bringing gravity to the subject matter and lightness to its presentation. Keeping things honest -- and often rapturous -- has become a modus operandi. Lorca, who first met Caws at their mutual grammar school, explains, "When Matthew and I decided we were going to start our own band and that we were going to sing, we set a couple of rules. One of them was that we would not sing in any affected sort of way, that we would sing the way we talked. Another is that we would write about things that were close to us and about our lives. "
For all the fatalism in their lyrics, there are hints of rapprochement, renewal, maybe even a happy ending. "Are You Lightning?" and "I Like What You Say," for example, chronicle the beginnings of a long-awaited romance. On "Here Goes Something," Caws, the father of a young son, deals with the sea-change of excitement and concern that parenthood brings: "Once you've brought someone into the world, even if you think that world is going down the tubes, you have no choice but to be hopeful and root for things to improve." Having survived and thrived, Nada Surf indeed has a lot to feel lucky about. After listening to this new album, though, it becomes clear that we are really the fortunate ones.