Weezer

After five years off, Weezer comes back with their second self-titled album, if only to push the restart button after 1997's Pinkerton turned its back on their clean-cut geek-is-cool image by thrashing through 10 dark and spiky songs. Here the band enlists the help of former Cars front man Ric Ocasek to help them return to the joys of sunny power pop. And it works, kind of. But it's more interesting for the pendulum swing from the big melodies of "Photography" to the anxious paranoia of "Hash Pipe."

Over the past few months, the most burning question in rock & roll has been: What the hell is
up with Weezer? After their 1996 album, Pinkerton, a nifty little grunge-pop song cycle that
nonetheless fizzled on the radio, it looked like Rivers Cuomo and his "Buddy Holly" boys
had gotten their asses abandoned to the Buzz Bin of history. Except that unbeknownst to
anyone over the age of twenty-five, Weezer not only kept hanging in there, the... More >