Rivers Cuomo
began plotting
Weezer
's return to hard rock long before the October 2020 passing of
Eddie Van Halen
, but once the guitarist left this world,
Cuomo
decided to dub the group's heavy 2021 record
Van Weezer
. The title is an affectionate tribute to an early musical hero and also some truth in advertising: The album is indeed filled with the kind of oversized riffs and melodies that characterized
Van Halen
's reign in the early 1980s. Like all great
albums,
weighs in at a swift 31 minutes, spending no longer than necessary to drive home the hooks and guitar solos, but that's where the easy comparisons end.
doesn't use the early
albums as a blueprint so much as they treat the band as their spirit animal, attempting to infuse
's power pop with a dose of reckless abandon.
Rivers
smartly doesn't attempt to mimic the gonzo showmanship of
David Lee Roth
; he sticks to his geeky persona, an image that is enhanced, not contradicted, by the overdriven roar of the amplifiers. It's not so much that there's tension between
's plain-spoken vocals and the mountains of guitars, but that the noise delivers a transcendence his singing yearns to achieve. It also helps that this neo-nostalgia project helps focus
's songwriting. Working with a rotating cast of collaborators, he remains focused on big hooks, melody, and clever turns of phrases that never are anchored to the past even when they play upon memories. It's a trick that
pulls off as a whole: any of its retro origins are washed away by big, dumb sounds that keep the record grounded in the eternal now, an aesthetic choice that also helps the album be a rousing good time. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine