If you were to ask a fan of rock music what they thought about Weezer recently, the common response would probably start with a sigh, and then a comment about how they were great in the 90’s and early 00’s, but now they kinda suck. It’s a fair assessment as Weezer gave the world some great music at one point, and their recent albums Raditude, Hurley, Death to False Metal felt like the band had given up, focusing more on quantity than quality. Now, we have The White Album, and everything is forgiven. This album should have been released on Easter Sunday, because Weezer is back from the dead.

Right of the bat, ‘California Kids’ gets Weezer back to their basics with solid, catchy riffs that harken back to The Green Album. Hearing Rivers Cuomo sing “It’s Gonna Be Alright” almost feels like a dare to believe him that this album is going to be special: and he wasn’t lying. It’s a great opener, followed by ‘Wind In Our Sail’ which is very upbeat, maybe even jolly with a keyboard presence. It feels like a song playing as you take your crush for a walk in the park. After that is the single ‘Thank God For Girls’ which, as the third song on the album, gets the listener to realise that the first two songs are not a fluke, and this album has already surpassed everything they’ve done the past decade. This song also sees Cuomo singing some hectic, faster paced lyrics discussing gender stereotypes, while tossing in oddball mentions like ‘cannoli’ and ‘antiseptic ointments’, to keep the listener on their toes and asking “did he just say…?”

‘Do You Wanna Get High?’ is the first song here that has a dark feel to it, almost giving off a vibe that it is a sequel to their former hit ‘Hash Pipe’. The song also gives off some of their early sound in the guitar work, but not quite as much as ‘LA Girlz’. ‘LA Girlz’ is a great song which will immediately make you think that it could fit on The Blue Album, with retro 90’s sound and Cuomo’s self-deprecating lyrics “LA Girls, please act your age/You treat me like I have the plague”. The album finishes with the unique ‘Endless Bummer’ which feels like Weezer doing their best Beach Boys impression. You can almost picture Rivers Cuomo strumming his acoustic guitar on a beach watching the sunset, lamenting about something that went wrong that ruined his summer. The song also finishes with a great outro jam that wraps up this comeback album nicely.

In the end, Weezer has given us their best album in years. Is this album on par with The Blue Album and Pinkerton? No, but it is damn good in its own way. As a fan, I hoped that it would be good, but I admit I wasn’t holding my breath when I first clicked play. There are some great songs mixed in with mostly good songs, and I really don’t have any complaints about it. It is a joy to realise that Weezer have still got it, and let’s hope that future albums will be comparable to The White Album.

4.5/5

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