Gwilym Mumford 

Weezer: Weezer review – as big, dumb and crunchy as the early hits

Rivers Cuomo and co’s ‘White Album’ continues their return to respectability with stirring power pop and dorky half-rhymes
  
  

Some erratic songwriting decisions … late-era Weezer.
Some erratic songwriting decisions … late-era Weezer. Photograph: PR Company Handout

After a run of weakly received albums, 2014’s Everything Will Be Alright in the End represented a return to respectability for Weezer, with lead singer Rivers Cuomo tapping into the vulnerability and ennui that made the band’s second album Pinkerton such an absorbing listen. This, their fourth, self-titled LP (informally known as ‘the White Album”), continues that gentle upswing in form, channelling the buoyant surf rock of their debut, Blue. LA Girlz (awful title aside) is the sort of stirring power pop Cuomo could bash out in an afternoon back in the band’s glory days, while recent single King of the World is big, dumb and crunchy in the manner of early hit Undone (The Sweater Song). This being late-era Weezer there are of course some erratic songwriting decisions – the dorky half-rhymes of Thank God For Girls – and a fair bit of filler (Jacked Up, (Girl We Got a) Good Thing are entirely unmemorable), but there’s also enough here to stir feelings of nostalgia in anyone who fell for the band the first time around.

King of the World – Weezer.
 

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