Some may recall Nada Surf’s mildly successful tune, Popular, a few years past. One of the last passengers on the quirky, ironic yet altogether wholesome wagon of bands that shifted gear back to first and meandered through the airwaves at a safe and conscientious speed. Songs seemed to be almost exclusively concerned with the band’s lack of social accomplishments, yet remained jovial and cool in a nudge nudge, wink wink – aren’t we self-aware? kinda way. Bands made concerted attempts to look like librarians, spinning melodious tales of being the dork at the dance, yet with enough flamboyance to guarantee legions of adoring teenagers.

Nada Surf certainly were not the most inspired, but neither were they the most repulsive of the bunch. To their credit, they have continued on – now no longer with cable music television ubiquity or appearing on any playlist in high rotation.

The Weight Is A Gift is the band’s fourth album – proof that their desire to play music was genuine rather than a means to disappear in the brief glow of the spotlight.

The problem is: it’s all rather dull.

Not the abyss of mediocrity and stagnation characteristic of most of the bilge that pumps through the nation’s radio-waves, but certainly not a welcome alternative.

However, the album is an example of a very poignant type of failure – an album that is wholly unremarkable. It arouses no disgust or derision; one could quite willingly have the album playing from start to finish without hearing the accompaniment of your teeth grinding down to the gums. I cannot, in all honesty, actively dislike the band. But after awhile, the combined effect of such vague and complacent niceness becomes akin to a three course meal consisting only of porridge. Lukewarm porridge.  

There are moments when their songs reach beyond their conformity and provoke a response.  There is an oddly touching melancholy to Always Love, despite featuring lyrics that leave one hungering for the poetic intensity of Hall and Oates.  Also on Comes A Time, the music slows and begins taking on a more romantic and sensual tone.

Unfortunately, like the rest of the album, it never seems to get there. Not that I believe all music should be constantly destroying previous definitions of sound, shaking with primal agony and doing possible damage to your stomach lining. There is certainly nothing wrong with creating songs that are winsome and breezy.  Nevertheless, the songs on The Weight Is A Gift are generalised  to such a degree as to be nothing more than briefly diverting.