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Nada Surf
If I Had a Hi Fi
By Brian Baker
Cover albums are curious artifacts in the music industry. In some cases, widely known and commercially successful bands use the concept as a forum to tout their favorite bands or early influences, while some obscure artists cover those aforementioned successful bands with an eye toward fame and payday by association. Nada Surf’s If I Had a Hi Fi doesn’t fall into either camp; the indie rock faves have a sizable but still largely cultish following, and the songs that they’ve chosen for their cover project, some solely on outside recommendations, fly so far under radar that, between the relatively unknown set list and the band’s gorgeously melancholy arrangements, the album almost plays like a brand new Nada Surf release.
The highest profile songs on If I Had a Hi Fi would have to be the Depeche Mode mope wave synth pop classic “Enjoy the Silence,” Spoon’s “The Agony of Lafitte” for the indie crowd and the Moody Blues’ 1969 hit single “Question” for the classic rock demographic. The hook is that, in Nada Surf’s hands, the truly dour “Silence” comes out like a bristling Big Star minor key epic (a sound matched with the Surf’s take on the super obscure “Electrocution” by Bill Fox) and “Question” motors along with the pop intensity of an early Gin Blossoms demo. Similar inventive treatments are given to Kate Bush’s “Love and Anger,” which sounds as wonderfully propulsive as a Matthew Caws original, their all-too-brief spin on Arthur Russell’s “Janine,” which lilts like the Shins as produced by Adam Schlesinger and a triumphant and largely faithful reading of Dwight Twilley’s “You Were So Warm.” If I Had a Hi Fi is not an album that devotees of the narrowly appreciated songs will necessarily seek out, but Nada Surf fans will devour whole.
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