The Eels dilemma rears its head once more…

I could have equally chosen Lucky, The Proximity Effect, or The Weight is a Gift - the album that introduced me to Nada Surf, and which I couldn’t get out of my head for a long time. In the end, my love/not-quite-hate relationship with The Weight is a Gift just meant that it was ruled it out in favour of Let Go.

Like a lot of Nada Surf albums, it’s a combination of insanely catchy indie pop hooks and middlingly generic filler, but where Let Go really shines is in its opening five tracks: this is an album that flies out of the traps in the hope of building enough momentum that you won’t mind a little drift in the second half. It works… just about.