There are some acts who have just been making great music for so long that you kind of take them for granted. They won’t be headlining stadiums, but they’re also not fading into obscurity to the point where you only remember them with your friends from college. They’re here, they’re great, and you should listen to their new albums as well as their old, such as Nada Surf with their umpteenth enjoyable record, Moon Mirror.
Like other Nada Surf releases, yet without feeling repetitive, the band taps into that alt-power-pop strain that you’ve loved for decades, even if you didn’t realize it. Opener “Second Skin” and hopeful follower “In Front of Me Now” are just sheerly pleasurable, like Nada Surf as a whole. There are some shifts, such as the more pressing rock of “Intel and Dreams”, or the ominous closer “Floater”, but this is the Nada Surf you know & love.
It might be a thing particularly with indie-pop bands of the nineties, from that rare period where you could make a long-term go of it as an indie-pop band, to have a long, sweet life as perhaps not your favorite band, but one you’ve always enjoyed & will continue to enjoy. Here’s to ever-more Nada Surf.
