Nada Surf - 'The Weight is a Gift' (City Slang) Released 19/09/05

 

 

You can’t help but feel for Nada Surf. Despite the gushing column inches generated by 2002’s seriously lovely 'Let Go' album, the record-buying public continues to either cold-shoulder the band completely or remember them solely for authoring the briefly amusing college rock chant-along ‘Popular’ in the mid-90's, neither of which is the most enviable of positions for a band to be in.

Now, the 'Weight is a Gift' breaks Nada Surf's lengthy silence with 11 tracks so full of sunshine condensed to pure pop hooks and heartwarming harmonies it practically has the words 'summer smash' engraved in its grooves - and it's released just in time for the bleakness of autumn showers and falling leaves. Meanwhile, other bands are busy lifting the New York trio’s power-pop shtick to new levels of commercial viability.

But the 'Weight is a Gift' is by no means the kind of throwaway fodder that loses its appeal with the passing of the season it was ideally suited for. While the almost excessively infectious 'Imaginary Friends' could well be one of Foo Fighters' less piledriving moments and a few other tracks inch dangerously close to the glossy, overly perky area occupied by Weezer.

However, Nada Surf manage to create a more Byrds, Big Star and Beach Boys-loving ilk than the two-dimensional terrain of Dave Grohl's stadium-conquering riff-rock behemoths or Rivers Cuomo's whiny irony-merchants.

The result, happily, is a charming album that veers effortlessly from heartbreak and contemplation to sheer exhilaration whilst overcoming its lack of groundbreaking musical innovation by packing an embarrassment of top-drawer tunes and some subtle surprises, too. Take 'Blankest Year' as an example. The perkiness of what initially sounds little more than an annoyingly chirpy declaration of intent to have a par-tee turns out to somewhat deceptive as closer listen reveals the depressing hardship that the protagonist wishes to alleviate with the shindig pursued in the happy-clappy choruses. Elsewhere, 'Concrete Bed', 'Do It Again', 'What is Your Secret' and 'All is a Game' hit a dizzyingly high reading for melodically endowed pure pop thrills.

The first single 'Always Love', despite arriving with what is possibly a pile-it-high overload of distorted guitar riffola, is graced with the kind of intoxicating melody that would most likely sound just as infectious whether it was whistled or subjected to a rendition on recorder, xylophone or bagpipes. The two occasions when the tempo and decibel-count are allowed to drop to hushed and unhurried ballad territory, the ethereally pulsating 'Your Legs Grow' and 'Comes a Time', which takes a vintage Neil Young title and turns it into a gracefully hypnotic ode to near-immobility worthy of the equally slo-mo art house flick Paris, Texas that’s namechecked in the lyrics, are so good that Nada Surf should be legally required to include at least three further slices of this goosebump-inducing loveliness on each of their future albums.

'The Weight is a Gift' may not exactly transform the musical landscape, but it's one of those albums that manage to make innovation seem like a vastly overrated virtue by its surefooted mastery of tried and tested formats. Music this affecting simply deserves to be heard far beyond the sphere of music hacks - and put an instant end to Nada Surf's colossally unfair mainstream reputation as one-hit wonders.