Nada Surf – You Know Who You Are

Clean-cut veterans Nada Surf really should've scaled the same commercial heights as Death Cab For Cutie. The melodies behind Matthew Caws’ quasi-philosophical musings certainly draw from a similar R.E.M./Posies nexus (see album highlights Friend Hospital and Victory’s Yours) but as enjoyably winsome as they remain, it’s difficult not to ponder whether this feels a little passé in 2016. To do so, however, is to miss the point.

Never alarming, never challenging but always effortlessly attuned to the dusty hum of who they are, Nada Surf are a faded favourite t-shirt; an overnight stay in your childhood bed; a comforting glimpse at your past that throbs with nostalgia while burning brightly with the knowledge of how much you've changed and how far you've come.

That may read like a dismissal of You Know Who You Are, but hey – in the right dosage, a little reminiscence is a mighty powerful tonic for the soul. [Will Fitzpatrick]