Maladroit
While Weezer leader Rivers Cuomo sports a detached, loner pose that suggests a deep-seated inability to socialize with others, his songs reach out and touch his audience with their emotionally ambiguous honesty and — most importantly — their undeniable catchiness. Cuomo has cited KISS as a major influence on his work and one easily hears KISS’s merge of forceful hard rock and shameless pop in Cuomo’s writing. For Weezer’s fourth album, Cuomo and company make a quick break with an opening trilogy packed with a solid crunch of rhythm guitar and harmonies (“American Gigolo,” “Dope Nose,” “Keep Fishin’”) that draw immediate attention with their intensity. Though little more than a half-hour, *Maladroit* covers a great deal of territory. ‘80s alt-gods the Cure and Dinosaur Jr. are recalled in the whimpering melodies and elliptical moan of the slow-burning ballad “Death and Destruction,” the overcharged volume of “Slob,” and the giddy “Lovecats” bounce of “Burndt Jamb.” “Possibilities” tilts towards generic hardcore, but “Love Explosion” makes good use of a cheesy ‘80s hard rock guitar solo to color the wall of the band’s block guitar chords.
Allow me to start by making a rather dorky connect-the-dots between two landmark cultural institutions of our key demographic: Weezer ...
Since hardly anybody -- not even indie bands -- did that in 2002, it's a remarkable event when Weezer does exactly that, especially following a half a decade of inactivity.
In case your high school coach didn’t already tell you, then Weezer will: timing is everything.