Weezer -- Van Weezer

Original Version: 6/10

Vinyl Version: 7/10

Weezer's 15th studio album, Van Weezer, just happened to be released during the exact month I am going back through and reviewing all of the band's albums. Thus, I feel like I'm as uniquely positioned as anyone to review it. With that in mind, I can leapfrog right off of what I said in the last review. Weezer make two types of albums. One where they're just interested in exploring and experimenting with certain sounds. The other where they're only interested in making the best collective work possible, regardless of the genre. The work they released this January, OK Human, which is essentially a perfect album, is the latter. Van Weezer, swimming in the sweet slop of 80's hair metal riffs and late 70's pop-rock is the former.

The result is a not-exactly-cohesive album, featuring plenty of guitar shredding, but also a lot of cheesy keyboard textures ("Hero" is particularly egregious in that department), and lyrics about hairspray ("Precious Metal Girl"'s got puns!). It's a fun album with some great songs, though Van Weezer as a whole finds itself nowhere near the band's best overall work. The highlights, though, are many, mostly coming in the middle of the album.

"I Need Some of That" features throwback lyrics to early teenage years, riding a big melodic wave like The Cars' "Just What I Needed," but with a little more urgency, and a classic Rivers Cuomo guitar solo (of course, "Just What I Needed" also has a killer one. Considering there's a recording of Cars' frontman (R.I.P), and three-time Weezer album producer, Ric Ocasek, at the end of the song, I'd say the Cars similarities are on purpose. Wait a sec, let me close this parenthetical.). The song features some truly kinetic energy, the kind of track that makes you believe in things again.

Next is "Beginning of the End" which really sounds like a classic Weezer song, replete with a super gnarly, mega-awesome guitar solo in the bridge, which makes perfect sense, since the song explores the idea of the band's last ever show (and it fit the third Bill and Ted movie, where it appears in the end credits, perfectly).

"Blue Dream" finds Weezer playing the opening riff from Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train," before diving into a high-energy track about hanging out in the ocean to recover from a breakup. It's a lot of fun.

The rest of the album ranges from okay ("The End of the Game") to not so okay (what the hell is "Sheila Can Do It?!"). Overall, Van Weezer turns out to be a weird, but middle-of-the-pack Weezer release. The thing is, now that I've listened to 15 of these things on repeat for a month, I've quickly realized, if the tireless Weezer is doing something you don't like today, they'll probably be doing something you do like tomorrow.

P.S. The vinyl version has an awesome secret song called "I've Thrown It All Away," which raises the score for this thing a whole point. The album needed a jam at the end, and this is it!

2021 Atlantic/Crush
1. Hero 3:56
2. All the Good Ones 2:44
3. The End of the Game3:01
4. I Need Some of That 3:19
5. Beginning of the End 3:15
6. Blue Dream 2:50
7. 1 More Hit 3:05
8. Sheila Can Do It 2:57
9. She Needs Me 2:52
10. Precious Metal Girl 2:50

11. I've Thrown It All Away VINYL ONLY

12. I Need Some of That (Reprise) VINYL ONLY