The Weight Is a Gift by Nada Surf

The Weight Is a Gift, Nada Surf's fourth album, came out on Barsuk in 2005 as the follow-up to Let Go, the record the band made while holding down day jobs and that won the critics over. Death Cab for Cutie guitarist Chris Walla produced it, and it was cut over a pair of sessions split between Seattle's Hall of Justice and San Francisco's Tiny Telephone, with four mixers, Ed Stasium and John Agnello among them, sharing the final polish. The Long Winters frontman John Roderick adds vocals.

Matthew Caws sings and plays guitar, Daniel Lorca plays bass and sings harmony, Ira Elliot drums, and the whole thing is warm, bruised, big-hearted guitar pop about desire and deceit, greed and love, joy and regret, and growing up before you're ready. Pitchfork's Marc Hogan heard melancholy post-Coldplay pop with a gritty streak of optimism. "Always Love" later turned up in the 2007 film Disturbia.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.