Record Review: Nada Surf - Lucky

Rating: 0.2 / 10.0

So, Nada Surf, looks like you were hell-bent on making me look like a total asshole. You couldn't have released a record that had one good, quasi-memorable song on it? Would it have killed you?

Apparently, it would have.

The inappropriately-titled Lucky has it all: banal hooks, atrocious lyrics (spanning from clumsy political polemics - "Whose Authority" - to showcases of scientific ignorance - "Ice on the Wing"), ghastly arrangements, and impossible-not-to-forget melodies. Lucky is so god-forsakenly bland that it offends.

"Weightless" and "Ice on the Wing" (what the hell were they thinking with the brass section breakdown? I mean, really, what the hell were they thinking?), are especially disgraceful tracks on an album from a band that has never had a sound to call its own. And what the hell, I'll go out on a limb: I don't think anyone will write and release a worse track than "Everyone's On Tour" this year. And it's awful early, but I'm pretty sure I'm right.

I guess my biggest qualm with Nada Surf, still, is that they have never - ever ever ever - had a sound that is in any way, on any level, unique. They embody dogmatic adherence to popular, current convention as perpetrated by those who don't know how to do anything else besides what they hear on the radio. For now, they've settled into aping Death Cab for Cutie (except on "The Film Did Not Go 'Round," where they hoped nobody who listened to this record had ever heard "Girl in the War" by Josh Ritter), but they, like an alarming number of other artists (I made the same criticism of Brooklyn's Blood on the Wall recently) bring nothing of their own to the table except their all-too-apparent lack of talent.

This album is a waste of your time. It's so boring, you won't even be able to fall asleep. Do not listen to it. I'm begging you. Unless, that is, you like music that is the sonic equivalent of a poorly made, pretty uncomfortable, pair of taupe pants. Its only redeeming quality is that it ends in less than an hour and that Matthew Caws doesn't have a disgusting voice and if you really focus on it, it's almost enough to take your mind off how piss poor the rest of the record is. Almost.


-PTC