Nada Surf
Lucky
Barsuk Records
By Rusty Roberts
To me one of the most important things about a record is its sequence: if an album doesn’t flow right, it has the potential of being a train wreck. I have always followed the Rob Gordon principle of mixtape sequencing, and applied it to albums as well. You have to kick it off right, and then bring up a notch, only to bring it down a few for fear of one’s load being blown.
Back in October when the details were announced for Lucky, the newest opus in the storied discography of Nada Surf (one of my all-time top 5 favorites -- another High Fidelity steal,) with the nice new press photo of the popular Brooklyn trio came the running order. Of the 11 songs listed, some titles were seen before and some were fresh to my eyes. “I Like What You Say” is a bouncy, by the numbers cut that has been floating around since the summer of 2006, originally appearing in a slightly altered form on the soundtrack to the teen romp John Tucker Must Die. “The Film Did Not Go ‘Round” was a song even older, once performed by lead singer and guitarist Matthew Caws at a solo show at NYC’s Living Room in the summer of 2005 with vocalist Lianne Smith, who also duets on the album’s now closing cut.
Notice I say ‘now.’ According to that October running order, “See These Bones” was set to end the album. A very fitting tune for a finale, the sequence for Lucky was eventually revised on Barsuk’s site, moving “Bones” from last to first. First? Truly, it is a grand and moving song in the tradition of the Surf, and should rest next to songs like “Paper Boats” and “Robot” as a part of the canon of great album ending anthems. Instead we are left with an album that has a solid A-Side, and a B-Side that could use a little shuffle.
But that doesn’t mean the songs aren’t the best. Just because it doesn’t run in the right order doesn’t mean the songs suffer. The sunny “Ice On The Wing” features a fitting brass outro from Martin Wenk of Calexico fame, which has been something never showcased on a Nada Surf record previously. The heart of the album does lie in the middle of the record in the form of “Are You Lightning?,” which could be about a relationship’s fruitful beginning that soon leads in to an unexpected, yet delightful journey through pregnancy into parenthood. I could also be wrong, but that’s what I figured it was about one night when I played the song for the umpteenth time, and the second half of the lyrics just hit me over the head, making that pop noise like one would hear in those recent V8 commercials. Especially with the closing lyric: ‘The sun shine on and on / let the sun shine on and on,’ which could also easily substitute sun for son. The possibilities, as they say, are endless.
If one was going in to Lucky expecting a return to the fuzzed out guitars and songs about high school melodrama circa 1996, they’ll be sorely let down. Ever since the release of 1998’s The Proximity Effect, this trio has more and more been distancing themselves from that little record that put them on the map, writing about more mature subjects while adding in to the fold new instrumentation. Let Go almost never happened, but it did, and it’s made Nada Surf what they should be, and that is a damn good band. And you should be lucky for that, we all should.
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