Nobody can fault Nada Surf for not trying. They write decent music with friendly vocals. They do everything that makes people listen except one thing: They're too reserved. Unlike contemporaries vying for an audience, they don't steal another band's riffs (Jet, Louis XIV) or create an image that's harder than their music (Good Charlotte, or whoever), they just play really conservative rock 'n' roll. What's most frustrating, though, is that when they let go of their inhibitions, they write some pretty good music.
Their newest album, Lucky, starts off with the band's most impressive measured effort, See These Bones."" Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard's appearance isn't all that notable, but his presence probably doesn't hurt because the swaying melody sticks. Nada Surf lose it, though, as soon as they try to turn it up a notch. When singer Matthew Caws jumps an octave after the third chorus, it sounds unnatural, like they're trying to fit too many things into a song to make it better than it is.
The next track, ""Whose Authority,"" does a good job of telling the band's story. They admit their problem of ""having all the answers, still failing the test."" They've listened to records, heard what works and know what's good, but they still struggle to put it all together on their own. They even sound frustrated with themselves, asking in one lyric: ""Where did you get the patience, did it come easily?""
The rest of the album plays out similarly.""Beautiful Beat"" sounds like the Doves, as though it was written for a hip, e-friendly Dot-com commerical. Meanwhile, ""Here Goes Something"" is ideal for some feel-good, coming-of-age film soundtrack, and ""Weightless"" has a nice guitar-driven melody but never really takes off like the beginning suggests it might.
Most of Lucky's songs, meanwhile, rely on their lyrics to carry the dull, repetitive melodies, and their sappy vocals often have a hard time hitting home.
""Emo"" is a difficult term in music, mostly because of its connotations, and there's a fine line between the emo that makes middle school girls cry and the heart-wrenching poetry that actually portrays emotions. Nada Surf is somewhere in between, straddling the line.
The band's liner notes read like a LiveJournal blog, and their lyrics are even more happy-go-lucky. If their last album, The Weight is a Gift, was all about pain, then Lucky is all about not worrying about the pain and focusing on everything that's good.
At times it's hard to tell whether Nada Surf is trying to imitate Barsuk labelmates Death Cab for Cutie or Rogue Wave because they do not possess half of the poetic skills of Ben Gibbard. They'd be better off not trying to imitate anyone, because the more they try to be somebody else, the more boring their albums will be in the future.
