Nada Surf STARS ARE INDIFFERENT TO ASTRONOMYNada Surf celebrate their 20th anniversary with The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy, the band's seventh studio album and first collection of original material since 2008's Lucky. "Every birthday candle that ever got blown out is one more year of someone trying to figure it all out," Matthew Caws sings in "Looking Through," a song about aging gracefully and holding onto one's youth. Most of the other tunes follow suit; "No Snow on the Mountain"

Most of the album does move at a leisurely pace

inexpensively made demo tape -- paid for by Black Francis' dad -- the band made at Boston's legendary Fort Apache studio soon after they formed

RICH GIRLS 4

Originally hailing from a small village in rural Lower Bavaria

Simon Gallup (keyboards

Kenny Chesney brought "Never Wanted Anything More" to number one and Darius Rucker had a hit with "Come Back Song

Lonely KV (ep) was recorded and mixed in sporadic sessions that spanned four years at The Butcher Shoppe studio in Nashville

trading ten-minute sprawls with six-strings for woozy five-minute vamps on a piano

string- and horn-laden arrangements work their usual magic

Gomez sounds most at home on the uptempo dance tracks like "Kill 'Em with Kindness" or "Me & the Rhythm

carried out by a classical choir

but featuring background vocals by a young Miss Sharon Jones as well