Weezer ignites late comeback
October 7, 2014
On Tuesday, Los Angeles-based rock band Weezer released its ninth studio album titled “Everything Will Be Alright In The End.”
At 13 songs long, “Everything Will Be Alright In The End” takes Weezer back to its sound of origin, with guitar riffs and crashing drum patterns reminiscent of its earliest work from 1994.
This is an album that gets better as it goes.
After the halfway point, it is easy to hear that Weezer has dusted off its decent song-making abilities for a reason.
Anyone who listens to Weezer will more than likely tell you that the band’s most popular, and quite possibly best, work was done on its first three albums.
The debut self-titled “Blue” album, its sophomore album “Pinkerton” and its third album “The Green Album,” are all solid rock references you can bust out when having nerdy arguments with your friends as to why Weezer is awesome.
But after “Make Believe” was released in 2005 the band found the amount of listeners dropped to just the hardcore loyalists, while those enjoying their favorite nostalgic Weezer jams were likely swearing off the group’s contemporary work.
The band had no success that rocked the charts with the albums following “Make Believe.” Year-after-year Weezer would release an album that kept the band relevant through a string of single hits off of each respective release.
And this is the key theme that must be addressed with Weezer’s newest work — relevance.
This will be the 20th year that Weezer has been a recording group. And after hitting such a milestone the band has released a record that sounds exactly like the band it used to be 20 years ago, which begs the question: Why did it ever change in the fist place?
The lead singer, primary song writer, frontman and lead guitarist of Weezer, Rivers Cuomo, attributes the absence of any strong music-industry presence on his own actions.
It is apparent that Cuomo uses this album as a chance to make up for his past transgressions of steering the band in whatever direction he wished.
The second track on the album and the lead single, “Back to the Shack,” explains his position on the band.
“Sorry guys I didn’t realize that I needed you so much,” are the first words that leave Cuomo’s mouth on the track, followed by, “I thought I’d get a new audience, I forgot that disco sucks.”
He talks about how he would like to return to those old days of just rocking out and not caring about the image.
And it is an idea that Cuomo humors again and again throughout the composition.
The most intriguing piece on the album has to be the “Futurescope Trilogy.”
It is one song broken up into three sections that are quite entertaining to listen to and show that the musicians making up Weezer have matured.
However the timing of it all could not be more immature.
With most of the members of Weezer well into their 40s, is it ideal that the band is trying to reach for the same garage rafters it reached for 20 years ago?
This is a good album. It provides what Weezer fans have always wanted.
It is just sad to think that it may be a little too late for the band to deliver on something it should have produced a long time ago.