Weezer’s last attempts at cementing themselves on the alternative rock ladder were met with mixed reviews, and rightly so. Their collaboration with Lil’ Wayne on 2009’s Raditude clearly wasn’t helping the cause. Fortunately, producer Ric Ocasek has leapt to their aid again to return Weezer to their former glory with Everything Will Be Alright in the End.

Frontman Rivers Cuomo certainly has the intention of re-living their golden days, with the album’s sing-along single ‘Back to the Shack’ yearning for 1994. As always, Cuomo’s lyrics are rather uninspiring and even corny at times, most evidently in the opening track’s somewhat cringeworthy declaration: “Ain’t got nobody, Ain’t got no one to kiss and hug me…”. It’s no news that Cuomo is better with power chords than he is with words, so when you find yourself humming along with a number of tracks on the album, you know he’s done something right.

Even the guitar solos have come a long way since the note-for-note melody-mirrored shreds of the Green Album and we find a prime example with ‘1. The Waste Land’, where Rivers rests his vocals for the sake of an instrumental. The help of Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino makes surf-rock duet ‘Go Away’ another highlight, with the pair’s voices complementing each other like a cheesy chat up line.

It’s not Weezer’s chef-d’oeuvre, but definitely not their worst. Some will be satisfied with a handful of catchy trademark hooks, but veterans will wish they could jump in a time machine to 1994 and reproduce some classics like ‘Say it Ain’t So’ and ‘The Sweater Song’. Weezer are still cool in an uncool kind of way – we should just ignore the clichéd lyrics and take them for the nerd-rockers that they are. Maybe then, Everything Will Be Alright in the End…

https://soundcloud.com/umusic-backstage/sets/weezer-everything-will-be-alright-in-the-end

Alex Paddock