The Leak: Weezer

This next Tuesday, Hurley will be released by Weezer to the worldwide public. Having the luck of it already being leaked to Myspace and other sites, I had the privilege of already listening to it. This album is reminiscent of a period in Weezers discography when Rivers Cuomo was doing too many drugs and was in a serious depression. However, the album that came out was, in retrospect one of the best of all time and influenced an entire new genre of music. Of course, the album was Pinkerton, and although it did not have the commercial appeal of the Blue Album, it was a masterpiece in its own. It contained songs of deep emotion ( Falling for You, Pink Triangle) and just plain awkward songs (Tired of Sex). This was the basis of Emotional rock, or Emo, and influenced such bands as Taking Back Sunday and Jimmy Eat World.

This new album evokes the same emotion of awkwardness, but now on a more refined, produced scale. Rivers voice is more forced than usual with strains of angst on songs like lead single "Memories". This has only been done on one other Weezer song, which was Tired of Sex on Pinkerton. The first half of the album is loaded with perfect songs such as Memories, Trainwrecks, Ruling On, Unspoken and Where's My Sex? ( A play on the word Socks). The album almost falters on weaker tracks like Run Away, Hang On and Brave New World- with Run Away sounding more like a demo from the Alone series released by Rivers. The album ends with a beautiful song that reminds one of more classic rock and a nice addition to their catalog- Time Flies. On the deluxe edition of this album there is another great song called All My Friends are Insects, which is a short song , but makes a large impact. Also included is a cover of Coldplays "Viva la Vida" which in my eyes seemed like an odd choice, but never-the-less comes across as well done- minus the awkward sounding violins.

Overall, this album is cohesive and tight, with strong production and instrumentation. The aspect that is weak in my eyes in the lyrics. They come across as too simple at times, with very little development in the verses. Although this is not true in all the songs, it is a common theme throughout. However, this album is wonderful, and some of its songs will be on my end of the year lists. It is a strong pick-up from the dissapointing Red Album, and although Raditude was great, this is an improvement still.