Weezer -- Everything Will Be Alright In the End

9/10

Look, I don't want Rivers Cuomo to have to relive his mid-20's. The dark drama of that point in his life allowed him to make Weezer's sad, weird masterpiece, Pinkerton, but it also created the kind of painful mental turmoil that makes one want to go down into a hole and die. I get it. If I'd made albums from my early 20's up until now, the stuff I made in my mid-20's would most likely be full of the strongest, most powerful emotions. I don't know about most Weezer fans, but I'd rather Rivers Cuomo not have to feel that stuff again in his 40's and 50's. I'm not wanting current Weezer to display those types of dangerous negative emotions. I just want them to make good music. Preferably good music...with guitar solos...and real drums.
Perhaps unfortunately for Weezer, the albums where Cuomo was at his personal worst were when the band was at their musical best. But what if there was a way to capture that wonderful rock sound, while at the same time allowing for Rivers to be well-adjusted and happy with his life? What if this miracle could exist?
It can, and it's called Everything Will Be Alright In the End.
After the band's immersion into their general fan's least favorite genre, radio pop, when they released three musically inconsistent albums in three years that increasingly veered in that direction, Weezer wisely took a four-year hiatus. Everything Will Be Alright In the End is a victorious return, not only to the rock music of the band's most successful early years, but to musical cohesion in general. Everything Will Be Alright In the End is the band's first album that sounds great from front-to-back since 2001's Green, and it features far more exciting music than Green's pleasant surf-pop-rock. It's what hopeful fans and even critics have wanted to say in earnest for nearly 20 years: Everything Will Be Alright In the End is Weezer's best album since 1996's Pinkerton. Indeed, for this longtime Weezer fan, who can still remember his feelings upon first hearing newly released songs like "Say It Ain't So" and "The Good Life" when he was a teenager, my first listen of Everything Will Be Alright In the End caused me to well up with tears three separate times:
1. The guitar solo on "The British Are Coming," which unexpectedly goes through the kind of scales the band hadn't touched in decades.
2. The driving chorus of "Da Vinci," where Rivers Cuomo seems to be saying, "Yes, assholes, I could have been doing this the whole time the last 20 years, but where would the excitement in that be?"
3. And then essentially through the entirety of the glorious, three-part guitar symphony closer, "The Futurescope Trilogy."
I just don't think I can stress hard enough how great of a job the band do here at bringing back the original sound that put them on the map, while exploring more mature, wizened lyrical ideas. "I finally settled down with my girl, and I made up with my dad/Had to go and make a few mistakes, so I could find out who I am" Cuomo sings on "Back to the Shack," a song which also sees him lamenting the fact that, during that weird '08-'10 period, he abandoned live lead guitar duties, having drummer, Patrick Wilson, play guitar instead, while a session musician played the drums. Throughout EWBAITE, instead of pining about the pain his abandoning dad caused, Rivers shows that not only has he moved on, but he's striving to be a more present father for his kids--and holy cow, am I up for that! I have a kid pushing teenage years too now, Rivers! I don't need you to sing about stinging mid-90's pain! Write awesome music, while singing about what's up with you right now, and I'm here for it, buddy!

There are plenty more positive lyrical redirections here. Obviously, Rivers' painful, often messed up romantic longings are central to Pinkerton. Here, he sings about how much he loves his wife ("Lonely Girl," "Da Vinci"), how much he's not interested in hooking up with a groupie ("Cleopatra"), and his hopes that his daughter will love him through his flaws ("Foolish Father"). There's even a sequel to the band's 90's song "I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams." That male-female duet seemed to rake the girl over the coals, but here on unofficial sequel, "Go Away," she has all the power, with Best Coast's Bethany Cosentino's female character tossing out Rivers' cheating male character, and telling him good riddance.
There are plenty of "sorry we stopped rocking" moments here, but also, it's almost like Everything Will Be Alright In the End is not only a return to the sound of Pinkerton-era Weezer, but a mea culpa for some of that album's more negative lyrical leanings. It can't be lost on Cuomo that he started off a song on Pinkerton with the line "Goddamn you half-Japanese girls," and now in real life, his actual daughter is literally half-Japanese. In a way, there's a reckoning here, a coming to terms, and a feeling of peace and acceptance. The fact that he builds to a request for forgiveness with track ten, the aforementioned album climax, "Foolish Father," is beautiful. After that, the incredible, upbeat, cathartic, mostly instrumental "Futurescape Trilogy" is almost lagniappe.
So is this album better than what the band did in the 90's? No, but I don't think any band can top the stuff they did in their 20's when they're in their 40's. Everything Will Be Alright In the End is then an ultimate best case scenario. I love it. Every true Weezer fan should. Unless you got into the band because of Raditude, in which case, I don't know how to help you.

BONUS: Ric Ocasek (R.I.P.), who helmed production duties on Blue and Green, is here behind the board for the third and final time. He really knew how to bring out the best in this band.

2014 Republic
1. Ain't Got Nobody 3:21
2. Back to the Shack 3:05
3. Eulogy for a Rock Band 3:25
4. Lonely Girl 2:49
5. I've Had It Up to Here 2:49
6. The British Are Coming 4:08
7. Da Vinci 4:05
8. Go Away 3:13
9. Cleopatra 3:11
10. Foolish Father 4:31
11. The Futurescope Trilogy: I. The Waste Land 1:56
12. The Futurescope Trilogy: II. Anonymous 3:19
13. The Futurescope Trilogy: III. Return to Ithaka 2:1