Album Reviews

- by Chris Crane

Rock bands aren't supposed to play with orchestras. It's oxymoronic and weird and doesn't work. (Go fuck yourselves, Metallica.) This is an exception to that. Surprisingly. The orchestral arrangement is subtle and unobtrusive and works with the band in a way that backing keyboards would not, adding something without being excessive and actually working with the sound rather than against it. It's well produced but not overproduced. It just sounds good. There's too much talk introducing songs, but it's a live album, so that's to be expected. Mercifully the talk is at the end of the preceding tracks so you can easily skip to the next song.

I'm not gonna dig into the lyrical content. It's solid and these songs have meaning and feeling in them, but it's slow and mild and not something you're gonna rock out to. I'd recommend this for a day when life is kicking you in the stressticles and you need something to mellow out to. Plus it’s a great way to revisit some of Nada Surf’s classic tunes like “Blizzard Of 77” and “Inside Of Love” along with newer tracks from more recent albums ("Believe You're Mine", "Beautiful Beat"), while at the same time getting to rediscover them in a new way.

Track listing:

1. Comes a Time
2. Believe You're Mine
3. Beautiful Beat
4. Blizzard of '77
5. Rushing
6. The Fox
7. Blonde on Blonde
8. 80 Windows
9. Inside of Love
10. Out of the Dark
11. When I Was Young
12. Animal
13. Are You Lightning?