#2099 Weezer - Weezer (White Album)

I've mostly gotten over the pain of Weezer's second coming. I think I'm ready to hear a Weezer album with an open mind.

The basic backbone's fine. A little overpolished, a little obvious, but hookish, sure. And there's some searing little guitar moment in almost every song. I can't deny, each one has some ooo or skrwee to catch you at the 2:30 / 2/3 mark.

And lyrically, there's moments. Thank God For Girls is a little much, but . . . works, in a kinda awkward hey aren't you 46 but hey I can't believe I'm 36 so I guess its ok kinda way.

And there's the barest whiff of poison - but it's all still bubblegum. Rivers never forgave us for Pinkerton, and he'll never let us in again. This is all still pitched at the second gen kids.

And yet

I sense that somewhere out there Weezer's got that album in them that says, beyond all the Hurleys and Raditude goofs, I'm forty fucking six and counting. I am closer to dying than being born, and when I'm alone at night I feel more like that vulnerable kid in the first two than that swaggering douche in the last five, and despite all the ways you try to grasp at the good days too, doesn't that creep up on you at night, too? Let's get open and empty.

I don't begrudge this for not being that album. Rivers doesn't owe us shit. But I guess I appreciate, somewhere between the shimmers, there's that hint that he knows 3/5