That good album was 2003’s Let Go, coming seven years after their schtick-laced top 10 hit “Popular.” Yeah, that video with the cheerleaders and singer/guitarist Matthew Caws intoning lines from a ’50s dating handbook while Elliot and bassist Daniel Lorca kept time on a football field. That smash hit raised the stakes, and when their follow-up album—The Proximity Effect—failed to live up to their then-label Elektra’s expectations, they were unceremoniously dropped. A large fanbase in Europe continued to support them while they fought their way back, this time signing to Seattle’s Barsuk Records. Let Go was a rain-soaked masterpiece of micro-observation, mixing blizzards, favorite records and fruit flies into a stunning, wholly unexpected and generally un-Fitzgerald-esque second act for an American band.

Now comes The Weight is a Gift, a pop-tastic treat of a record. The disc just sounds great—big and clean and intimate all at the same time. Credit for that has to go to Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla, who produced the disc. “Chris Walla is … how do I best describe him?” Elliot asks himself. “Number one, he is the fucking sweetest guy. He’s kind of one of those A/V squad, kind of pocket-protector kind of guys. And when you’re done with the day, you’ll end up listening to the first side of [Rush’s] 2112. He’s a prog-rock geek, a musical theater geek. Like he’ll break into showtunes; it’s just totally ridiculous. But his energy is really boundless. We’d set up mics and then play for a while and then he’d come out and he’d just be standing there with his chin in his hand, looking at the microphone and the snare drum. And he’s just looking at it for 10 minutes and then he’d come over and move it an inch to the left .”

As it does on Death Cab tracks from their two most recent albums, Walla’s attention to detail pays dividends in unexpected places: codas, bridges and the spaces between songs. “One of my favorite things he did is there’s a break in ‘Imaginary Friends’ where there’s this long kind of Pink Floyd-y spot in the middle. And we told him, ‘Well, we need something that’ll sort of stop time.’ He sat down at a piano and he ran the track by like 20 times and he just played random notes, in key, on the piano. [He] turned some of them backwards and what he came up with was this sort of rain-falling-on-windowpane of just backwards pianos. It’s really this magic, perfect landscape that really does stop time. He’s got this great intuition for sound and texture.”

It’s almost irresistible given their respective careers not to ask Elliot how he feels about Death Cab’s jump to a major from tiny Barsuk, a path Nada Surf has traced, but in retrograde. “I was kind of stunned that they went with Atlantic, which has a terrible, terrible reputation in terms of signing lots of bands and what flies flies and what doesn’t doesn’t and they don’t really lift a finger. It’s going to be tough; if they don’t sell a lot of records, Atlantic doesn’t really give a shit that they’re the great Death Cab for Cutie, America’s most-loved indie rock band. They don’t give a rat’s ass about that. They only care about selling records.”

Generally, The Weight is a Gift is a little less quirky and micro-managed than Let Go but not in a bad way. The broad strokes of the pre-chorus to “Always Love” (“Always love/ Hate will get you every time”) break into an affecting, intimate chorus (“I’ve been held back by something you said to me quietly on the stairs”) and “Blankest Year” comes in with a resounding and punchy “Oh fuck it: I’m gonna have a party.” Taken as a whole, it adds up to an album that’s less nuanced, but no less enjoyable and generally stronger over the distance than Let Go. Power-pop is a tough sea to navigate, but Nada Surf does it with aplomb, steering their vessel away from shallows and jagged rocks toward waters that are—to quote their own “Your Legs Grow”—“cold but not that deep” where the band’s musical legs can grow to accommodate their ambitions.’

Ambitions which, probably, don’t extend to being one of “those ’00s bands” in the way they’re known as one of “those ’90s bands.” “It becomes this one lump thing,” says Elliot. “We’ve been associated with so many songs that aren’t our songs. Like ‘Disposable Penis.’ [I think he means King Missile’s ‘Detachable Penis.’ –ed.] It’s fucking insane. The ’90s have just faded into this one Geggy Tah [they had the hit “Whoever You Are” about changing lanes. ‘Member? –ed.] moment. I mean, what if Primitive Radio Gods came out with a great record this year? That’d be awesome.” ||

Nada Surf perform on Sat., Oct. 14 at the 400 Bar with Say Hi to Your Mom and Lianne Smith. 9 p.m. 21+. $12 advance/$14 door.

Swing on by the band’s official website at NadaSurf.com for more info on the band.

Head on over to our mp3 page to download hundreds of tunes, including Nada Surf's song “Do It Again.”