On their latest record, Nada Surf sound like a band having an absolute, unadulterated blast. Indeed, blast their way through Moon Mirror from start to finish is pretty much what they do. The catharsis is palpable, the exhilaration is tangible, the pure joy of playing couldn’t be more blatant; and from album opener “Second Skin” all the way through to penultimate track “Give Me The Sun” they really let rip and don’t really let up — and for all that founding trio Matthew Caws, Daniel Lorca and drummer Ira Elliot might only be a couple of circuits of the sun shy of sixty, they go at it here with all the vim and vigor of their mid-nineties younger selves.

Production-wise, Moon Mirror sounds great: the vocals are vivid and clear; the guitars are bright and crisp and while they sparkle with a hint of shoegaze and a shade of reverb, the effects are not allowed to muscle out the instrument itself. And the rhythm section — always one of Nada Surf’s major strengths in comparison to many of their peers — is as robust as ever, the bass buoyant but restrained, the drums driving things along at a brisk, tireless pace.

Yet for all that, it’s a sadly forgettable album. Whilst most of these songs sound great fun to play and possibly great fun to see performed live, there's little else to be said for them. There is not much to distinguish one tune from another and most of them sound like something you’ve heard elsewhere, a million times before. Possibly even on this very album, a couple of minutes ago. I couldn’t help but hear their one-time labelmates Death Cab For Cutie — incidentally, Chris Walla has produced the band in the past and it appears that some of that atavistic Death Cab DNA is still at work in the Nada Surf genes.

Much of the album is characterized by that tired, early-noughties striving to be anthemic that was many a band’s bread and butter back then, and whilst nostalgia for a decade in which thoughts of the future were filled more with excitement than dread is perhaps understandable, Moon Mirror could with do some of that 90’s angst that made their debut album High/Low — and even its underrated follow-up, The Proximity Effect — so enduringly great.

It’s not a bad album per se, but the whole thing is relentlessly upbeat and could do with a few jagged edges. Blasting into every song, it sounds like they go with what feels good and stick with it, and whilst there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, the album as a whole is short on dynamics, with little variation in terms of texture or tempo. “X Is You” is as close as the album gets to a standout track and whilst closing number “Floater”, with its longer pared-down intro and darker melancholy, teases us with something more substantive, by the time the vocals kick in it’s
back to much of the same middle-of-the-road indie rock as before.

order Moon Mirror by Nada Surf HERE