One of my favorite bands of my adult life is definitely Nada Surf.

While still sadly known best as an MTV Buzz Bin band for their 90’s cult hit “Popular”, Nada Surf reinvented themselves in the late 90’s and early 2000’s as a truly hardworking indie rock trio, producing some stellar albums (including The Proximity Effect, Let Go, and The Weight Is A Gift).

Last year, they took a brief detour with the all covers album If I Had A Hi-Fi (including a surprising cover of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy The Silence”, but they’re returning in 2012 with a brand new album - The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy.

As someone who has fallen mostly out of the musical loop this year, I’ve leaned hard on old favorites to deliver new solid work (Radiohead’s The King of Limbs is one of my favorites this year, for example), so it makes me pleased to see Nada Surf producing a new album.

The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy is due in stores on January 24th, 2012, and will surely have a bunch of touring behind it, but in the meantime, you can download the first single “When I Was Young” via the widget below, just enter your email addy, and you’ve got it.