Moon Mirror

Ten albums and over 20 years into their career, Nada Surf are simply getting better with age. Such is the overwhelming feeling you get on 2024s effusively hooky and philosophical Moon Mirror. The album follows 2020s equally engaging Never Not Together and once again finds them recording in Wales with producer Ian Laughton. If that previous outing brought together all of the journeyman New York bands myriad gifts for smartly written melodic pop/rock, Moon Mirror feels like a further distillation of the sound, marked by sparkling guitar riffs, crisp bass and drum interplay, and singer Matthew Caws knack for crafting lyrical songs rife with a bittersweet sense of joy. Caws and his bandmates started out in the early 90s when they were all in their twenties. Rather than bemoan the passing of time and youth, Nada Surf lean into their age on Moon Mirror, imbuing each song with a poetic, transcendental quality, one largely centered on the themes of gratitude and being present in the moment. Its a sentiment they dig into on "In Front of Me," a shimmering power pop anthem in which Caws seemingly lists all the foolish ways he wasted time in the past, whether through worry, envy, or impatience. Some of the toxic traits he lists are more expected, such as criticizing other artists work at the same time he is doubting his own ideas. Yet, there are clever turns of phrase that take on ever more existential meanings, like when Caws sings, "In the middle of summer, I was decembring." Similarly meditative and musically infectious moments pop up throughout, as on "Second Skin," where Caws senses an ever-thinning boundary between the physical and spiritual worlds, revealing, "this apartment building floats on a humming sea/Under the floorboards/Under you and me." These are songs that could make you cry just as easily as smile, but not because they are sad. On the contrary, these are some of the most joyful, sugar-rush inducing pop songs Nada Surf have written. Still, Caws and Nada Surf hone in so eloquently on the essential, bittersweet ideas at the core of Moon Mirror that their honesty and sweetness can hit unexpectedly hard in the way the best rock albums often do. ~ Matt Collar

ギター・ポップ・バンドの場合、キャリアを重ねるにつれてその〈蒼さ〉を保つのが難しくなっていきがちだが、このNYのバンドにはそれがまったく当てはまらない。10作目でも彼らの魅力的な疾走感は健在で、むしろそこに技術が加わったことで、楽曲の質もより高くなっている。ロックの聖地たるロックフィールドで録音されたアナログ感溢れるサウンドも最高だ。
bounce (C)赤瀧洋二