In retrospect I think it may have been a strained sense of alt-rock ‘90s nostalgia that kept me listening to Nada Surf’s Let Go well past its pop shelf life. It was a serviceable follow-up to ‘98’s The Proximity Effect but the Brooklyn band’s falling out with Elektra seemed to haunt them with plenty of clunky attempts at capturing the pop patina of their spoken-word pop wunderkind “Popular.” All that’s history now and with 2005’s lame duck The Weight is A Gift and this year’s too self-assured Lucky the band is in worst territory ”“ they aren’t trying to prove anything.  That type of mid-air restlessness/pompousness has always popped up in lead singer/writer’s lyrics for years. The sad-eyed recent father seems to be obsessed with the idea of floating mid-air in his lyricism and in the way he orchestrates songs. Just note his cross-analogy of young adulthood’s uncertainty and floating insects on "Fruit Fly's". More directly it manifests itself on “Hi-Speed Soul” as well. You can add the entire theme of the half-hearted philosophy of 2005’s The Weight is A Gift as well. That album was a type of round-a-bout nod towards Caws’ stated obsession with Eastern philosophy ”“ his proverbial yin and yang still hangs in the horizon. For proof just look at the telling cover photograph for their latest album.The unpleasant part is that much of Surf’s alternative rock lightness is becoming increasingly vacuous up there and Lucky seems to be another nail in their suspended coffin. This is exacerbated by Caw’s lyrical sea-change. He’s now splitting his writing between his usual girl troubles even in the midst of whimsy ('I Like What You Say' and 'Are You Lightning?') and accepting his mortality ('See These Bones', 'The Film Did Not Go ‘Round', 'The Fox'). There’s also a fair amount of sappy nostalgia injected into songs like 'Beautiful Beat' where Caws and co. sing “I'm trying to levitate I'm trying to leave the ground / tryin' to remember when I could / Fix anything with sound.” Ed Harcourt collaborates with a plaintive piano riff ready-made for an episode of Scrubs. Caws’ lyrics for 'Beat' and the waltz-cum-alt-rocker 'Weightless' further my opening argument. 'Weightless' ends on a rather sort note. Let’s just say that Caws, Ira Elliot and Daniel Lora aren’t the best at copping Teenage Fanclub-like harmonies anymore. For live shows it sounds even worse (Caws put it best by likening their voices to dying cats). For all criticisms on and off the stage Nada Surf add some new tricks to their bag of musical alt-rock tricks. 'The Fox' has a creepy oscillating guitar riff which helps propel a pretty shaky smatter of lyrics tying the lies in a romantic relationship with that of the U.S. government (no, really its true). Even album opener 'See These Bones' ropes you in sometimes with its chiming guitars and chamber reverb. Throughout Lucky, Nada still feebly force-feed needless collaborations with indie stalwarts onto their simple pop songs. Martin Wenk from Calexico adds jovial farting horn outro to the self-plagiarizing 'Ice on the Wing'. That song is about Caws’ grandfather’s adventures as a fighter pilot and ambulance driver but sounds more like an in-flight epistolary romance. Ben Gibbard and Sean Nelson of Harvey Danger add guest vocals on 'See These Bones' while Long Winters singer John Roderick adds vocals for 'Ice on the Wing'. John Goodmanson’s (Blonde Redhead, Sleater-Kinney) vapid production makes one pine for Chris Walla’s more involved production touch from Weight. I mean the man even made Tegan and Sara sound somewhat decent for The Con!To put it succinctly, Caws and crew’s modus operandi of keeping this honest and simple is slowly becoming old hat in a music world that quickly looks over albums like Lucky. Caws’ swirling lyrical love of mutually correlated opposites (insert romantic yin and yang song like 'Always Love', et al.) tends to be mildly superlative at best and boring at worst. How’s that for your heaven and earth? 53%mp3:> Nada Surf: 'These Bones' Links Nada Surf [official site] [myspace]