This year marks twenty-four years since New York-based Nada Surf released their debut album High/Low with its spoken-word rocker “Popular” blasting onto the airwaves. As the nineties drew to a close, and after the limited commercial success of their follow-up album The Proximity Effect, the band was forced to take day jobs and many fans thought Nada Surf was done. However, 2002’s Let Go and its single “Inside of Love” breathed new life into the band. Eighteen years on from the release of Let Go finds Nada Surf releasing their ninth studio album, Never Not Together.
Let Go’s importance to the history of Nada Surf cannot be overstated. It not only brought the band back from the brink of one-hit-wonder obscurity, but it also found the band discovering the formula for an album that truly works. Gone were the fluctuations between hard rock songs and quieter pop songs. Indie power pop songs with emotional lyrics were the future for Nada Surf and have worked quite well for them for going on two decades.
Never Not Together opens with “So Much Love”, surrounding the listener with the undeniable sound of Nada Surf. “Something I Should Do” finds singer Matthew Caws using the spoken word stream that made “Popular” such a unique song as he ruminates on the use of social media. From the beginning, Caws has shown himself to be a great songwriter and the decades have seen him honing those skills. In songs like the supersonic closer “Ride into the Unknown”, Caws sings ‘I never knew who I was supposed to be’, reflecting on past insecurities alongside some killer power pop.
Though Nada Surf has been an under the radar band for much of their career, the dedication of their fans more than makes up for any lack of commercial success. With Caws’ ability to write such introspective lyrics, it’s safe to say that we all have our own Nada Surf song that speaks to us personally. With Never Not Together, Nada Surf adds more songs destined to become fan favorites to their catalogue.
