You Know Who You Are

This album might not do anything particularly revolutionary, but as an example of affable, nuanced power-pop, it is hard to beat.

A well-drilled exercise in slick, sumptuous songwriting.

Throughout the album's crisp 10-track sequence, this reconfigured band are clearly once again enjoying the fruits of the unfathomable confluence of life and art. [Apr 2016, p.87]

You Know Who You Are is a smart, dynamic effort that breaks some new ground. [Apr 2016, p.76]

Aptly titled You Know Who You Are, the group’s new collection of songs sees the band once again merging upbeat rockers (“New Bird”) with shimmering ballads (“Believe You’re Mine”) to quietly craft an album that’s a case study in how to grow older gracefully.

The album is full of catchy guitar rock anthems that recall their '90s alt-rock heyday but also showcases some of the maturity and experience they've gotten since then.

The highs aren't quite as high as they might have been ten years ago, but Nada Surf are dependable purveyors of indie rock, and on YKWYA, they are as solid as ever.

There’s reason to believe that the kind of soppy, mellow pop they write just doesn’t have a place in our current times, that it reeks of starry-eyed nostalgia. But as every generation has a Seth and Summer romance for younger audiences to scrutinize and fawn over with episodic foresight, there will always be a platform for heart-on-sleeve songs to track the high and lows of a teen soap opera.

Two decades into their careers, as a mature Nada Surf continue to channel their youthful spirit, they've recorded a wise, plaintive album that touches upon the sounds of their past while confidently looking toward the future.

It seems as if You Know Who You Are is a shrug of the shoulders, a ‘let’s get on with it regardless’ statement instead of letting themselves get hung up over near misses and spluttering to a mid-air stalling. Instead they’re very much still soaring amongst the clouds.

You Know Who You Are combines unpretentious lyrics of passing time, loss and the urgency of life with harmony-packed power-pop exuberance, recalling Teenage Fanclub, The dB's or, as on Believe You're Mine, Johnny Marr. [Apr 2016, p.112]

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.

They have yet again created a record of consistent dependability, but sadly it fails to excite and veers too close to the middle of the road.

You Know Who You Are, on the other hand, is exactly the kind of thing we’ve come to expect from Nada Surf. Unfortunately, sometimes being reliable just isn’t enough.