Nada Surf – The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy

Four years. That’s how long we’ve waited for a proper new album from Nada Surf. Since then, the band have released one covers album, the palindromically-titled (and rather marvellous) ‘If I Had A Hi-Fi’, but the one thing everyone’s wanted the most is new material, and now it’s finally here, almost four years to the day since Lucky. The band have garnered somewhat of a reputation for being purveyors of indie-pop and nothing else, but to tar their whole discography with the same brush would just be foolish.

While ‘The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy’ doesn’t match the heights heard on ‘The Weight is a Gift’, it’s still a perfectly enjoyable album. While the group were never going to win any awards for innovation, they do a few things and they do them very well indeed. It takes not even four minutes for the band to remind us just how good they can be: ‘Clear Eye Clouded Mind’ is a powerful opener setting out the album’s main theme, which is the passage of time. Matthew Caws’s vocals are as good as they’ve ever been, and harmonies from Ira Elliot and Daniel Lorca are executed perfectly.

The album’s title hints at how the earth itself is not concerned with worldly things, and such a view might be considered overly pessimistic by some, but the downbeat nature of some of the album’s lyrics is disguised by the upbeat nature of most of the music. Some people would also think that the album peaks early with the epic ‘When I Was Young’, a song on which Caws looks back on his childhood with curiosity: ‘When I was young, I didn’t know whether I was better off asleep or up / Now I’ve grown up, I wonder: “What was that world I was dreaming of?”‘ However, it soon becomes apparent that the album’s alleged high point faces some stiff competition.

‘Teenage Dreams’ is the point at which optimism starts to shine through on the album, with Caws opining that ‘it’s never too late for teenage dreams’. This comes from a band who have stayed true to their own dreams: still together after twenty years and still going strong. They’d never profess to being too ambitious, but the songs they’ve written for their seventh studio album are imbued with energy and drive, something which is helped by the fact that they made a conscious effort to capture the energy of their live performances on record. It was an inspired move: there are no missteps on this album, and even if its closer, ‘The Future’, finds the band in contemplative mood once again (‘I cannot believe the future’s happening to me’), they are still forward-facing. This is a record that is quite endearing, to the extent that I suppose you could say it’s nigh-on impossible to remain indifferent to it.

Out now through City Slang; stream the whole album here.

Posted by Gareth O’Malley