What else does it mean when American rockers Weezer finally decide to call an album with yet another colour? For one, The White Album has everyone’s expectation going back to 2001’s Green Album , 2004’s Blue Album and maybe even 2008’s Red Album .
There’s no disappointing on the nostalgia front, all right. It is a cheeky moment when the chorus riff kicks in to the opening track ‘California Kids’ and the gravely guitar phrased almost exactly like their 1994 hit ‘Say It Ain’t So’. Going by the album cover of the band standing on a beach and songs like this one and ‘L.A. Girlz’, White Album is definitely about living and growing up in Los Angeles, specifically in the summer.
Cuomo is mostly singing about potential and great potential at that, like the piano-rock led ‘Wind In Our Sail’. The lyrics sound completely anecdotal, but considering Cuomo is married with kids, you really have to wonder where he gets his inspiration for songs like ‘Thank God for Girls’, getting punk anthemic about a girl. He sings in his signature anxious pace, “I’m so glad I got a girl to think of even though she isn’t mine/I think about her all the day and all the night it’s enough to know that she’s alive”. But by the end of the song, he’s got a weird comparison to creationism with Adam and Eve, but we’ll let that pass. They break out the Beatles-esque pop rock on ‘(Girl We Got A) Good Thing’, one that just exudes summer vibes, straight from the strum of the guitar. Guitarist Brian Bell and bassist Scott Shriner add that solid punk rhythm to ‘Do You Wanna Get High?’ Despite the familiar guitar/keytar wail in the background, Cuomo’s cheesy rhymes are typically camp. This is nerd rock right down to the themes of (occasionally) rebelling and serenading the girls you love or loved. Cuomo moans on ‘Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori’, which kind of pushes the mindlessness a bit too far (“She left me there, she left me all alone”).
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But they redeem themselves with a real gem of a closer. ‘Endless Bummer’ sounds like the high has almost worn off, and some realisations coming to pass about the girl Cuomo loved. Weezer have still got it going for the themes we always loved them for and