Weezer - Weezer
(Interscope)
http://www.weezer.com/

Since the release of Weezer’s comeback album, the eponymous green one, they band have been a little hit and miss. Though that one was a welcome, if very short, return to the world of music after a five year hiatus, the albums that followed struggled slightly to find the same consistent form. Maladroit had a few crackers – the earnest longing of Death And Destruction and the raucous, pounding slacker anthemics of Slob in particular – but felt like it was trying that little bit too hard to be a Weezer album. Make Believe also had its moments but really didn’t deliver an album’s worth of Weezer classics.

Three years and one Rivers Cuomo demos collection later, the band are back with their third eponymous album. The Red Album, as it’s bound to be called, is the best and most consistent record they’ve made for a while. The sombre Heart Songs is a lovely ode to the artists and tunes that have turned Cuomo’s crank over the years, while opening song Troublemaker is classic, quirky Weezer, full of witty, self-aware lyrics. The worst moment is Everybody Get Dangerous, which starts off like a Red Hot Chilli Peppers song, all funky grooves and Keidis-esque vocals, but soon wears thin. Its deviation from the path is soon rectified by the summer vibes of Dreamin’ that follows immediately after. Even the two songs written by Cuomo’s bandmates are good, though they do lack the trademark subtle kookiness of ‘proper’ Weezer songs.

So all in all, a return to their eponymous roots has brought a return to form as well. Weezer will probably never make an album as good as their first three, but they’ll keep trying. And, as they do on this one, they’ll come pretty close. Oddly, though, it’s the slower songs that will get them there, when the band just write from their hearts, rather than with a pre-conceived notion of what they should sound like in mind. Closing song The Angel And The One is testament to this. It's a soaring, epic, grand statement of sentiment that (ignoring the bonus tracks that follow) ends the album on a glorious uplifting note - Weezer at their best.

Mischa Pearlman