With heavy bias towards the pop side of emo, Nada Surf released their debut full length offering, and quickly proved to those listening that they knew their stuff. 'High/Low' is an admirable effort, bringing with it the odd moment of brilliance, mixed in with a good solid base of high quality melodies and riffs.
Standouts are undoubtably the opener, "Deeper Well", which, along with the second track "The Plan" provide eight minutes of energy that'll leave you breathless by the time you hit the third track. By contrast popular, complete with spoken word verses, is just a tad on the boring side - it's the kind of track that lends itself to the 'skip' button.
"Sleep" and "Stalemate" sees Nada Surf get back to the kind of 'quiet-LOUD-quiet' song structure that they do so well, and "Treehouse" is unashamedly upbeat-pop.
It's at this point in the album that things go a little downhill, however. "Icebox" drones throughout, redeeming itself only slightly with a slightly more melodic chorus, and "Psychic Caramel", along with the penultimate "Hollywood", is not going to set the world on fire any time soon. It's not that they're particularly bad songs, they're just nothing compared to the earlier tracks on the disc. The closer "Zen Brain" seems to be a similar disappointment at first, but manages to pull a decent sing-a-long chorus out of the bag at the last minute.
If Nada Surf had maintained the same quality for the last half of the album as the first, this would undoubtably have scored higher; as it is, it's worth buying, just don't expect too much from the later offerings.
Dan
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