DeViCom CD-Review: Nada Surf - The Proximity Effect

On their second album of amiable alternapop, New York trio Nada Surf casually strolls through a thick catalog of various post-grunge styles to suitable, but uninteresting, effect. Producer Fred Maher brings a more rounded, and heftier, wall of sound to their delicately balanced tales of life in the superficial and wishy-washy '90s than Ric Ocasek did on their 1996 debut, High/Low, but it is all ultimately disposable and utterly forgettable. While there are times when The Proximity Effect tries to break out of the limiting corner of the alt-rock universe it is staked for itself (like the power-popping rave-up "Why are You So Mean to Mean?"), more often than not it returns to the familiar, and assumingly comforting, haven of angst-free pop. Nothing really wrong with that concept, but it is certainly one that will keep Nada Surf marked and supressed with hyphenated labels.