Nada Surf - Lucky

are good mainstream musicians, doing what they’re asked to do and what their public like: ballads of normal teenagehood. You can’t blame them.

Half the tracks on ‘Lucky’ are potential hits; in three minutes or so they deliver a message of basic rebellion or of heartbreak on a soft-rock backdrop with nice refrains. It’s beach music: bring your guitar and we’ll sing these songs around a bonfire.

Sometimes, they’re like Arctic Monkeys, but never as violent, sometimes it’s The Strokes, even The Shins. Good references that also imply that they don’t possess much on their own. But, well, it’s better than many, so don’t panic if your little brother or sister spends the day singing ‘I like what you say’, it could be worse. You’re lucky; the album is well-titled.

Some tracks here are even memorable: ‘Here Goes Something’, a very simple folk song is touching in its naivety and blues-y vibe, ‘The Fox’, at last rock ‘n roll, with a long instrumental break is more desperate, more extreme than the rest of the album, which as a whole remains normally romantic, normally sad, and normally funny.

The main problem with the likes of Nada Surf, is their lack of conviction; everything is so expected anyway, there’s no surprise, no big deception, that it’s so easy not to believe in it. It’s well done, but it’s forgettable.