Everything Will Be Alright In The End is a fantastic rock album. After opening the album with some static and cryptic samples playing over a Everything Will Be Alright In The End is a fantastic rock album. After opening the album with some static and cryptic samples playing over a heavy chugging guitar part that wouldn’t feel out of place alongside “Hash Pipe”, “Ain’t Got Nobody” immediately busts into one of the album’s best hooks. Just as the initial hook goes away, another one with emotional lift that recalls the soaring melodies of Pinkerton kicks in. By the time they’re through the blazing guitar solo and drum fills, the original hook is back, only this time it’s slightly slowed down in its full on anthemic glory. THIS is the kind of song Weezer fans have been looking for, and the rest of the album doesn’t disappoint either.



Songs like Eulogy For a Rock Band and Lonely Girl have a hard edge to go along with the kind of heartfelt melodies that Weezer is known for. I even think I hear Rivers channeling Kurt Cobain a bit near the end of Lonely Girl, as he pleads “I know you’re scared/I know you’re sad/I’m here to help you realize it’s not so bad.” If “I’ve Had It Up To Here” is Weezer declaring they’re going to do things their way without letting outside influences cause them to stagnate, “The British Are Coming” is Weezer immediately making good on that promise. I’m almost positive that if you asked the average fan last year what they’d most like to hear on a new Weezer record, exactly zero of them would’ve said, “I want a Revolutionary War themed anthem with an uplifting guitar solo that ranks among the best they’ve ever recorded.” Sometimes Weezer just knows best.



Listening to the album from front to back, I get the sense that Weezer intended for this album to be a non-chronological timeline of the many phases Rivers and/or the band has gone through emotionally throughout the years (and even looks back a couple hundred years to relate to their recent/current yearning to be free of their oppressors). With “Cleopatra” and the cathartic finale of “Foolish Father” in the later portion of the album, one might infer that Rivers has gotten over and/or accepted demons that have recurred throughout the Weezer catalog, and we’re lucky to have these songs as the expression of that. The Futurescope Trilogy, with its energetic shredding and heart pounding drum fills, makes me hope that Weezer takes a page out of Hollywood’s book and goes for the Prequel Trilogy next time around. No matter what happens “in the end”, Weezer has crafted not only one of the best albums of 2014, but also one of the best in their entire discography. … Expand