Red, blue, green. Either I’m listening to the last track on In Rainbows, or Weezer has decided to add another color to their catalogue. If you selected number two, have a cookie. For anyone who lost hope in those sweater-wearing wunderkinds, have no fear, they have returned to claim their power pop throne.
“Troublemaker”, the opening track, will remind anyone of Pinkerton’s “The Good Life” with the bouncy riff and bad boy lyrics. Following is the opus “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)”. This epic has a quiet piano intro, reminiscent of “Across the Sea”, moves to a quasi-rap, and touches a few different styles in between. Next is “Pork and Beans”, the lead off single. With a sad sounding riff Rivers talks about getting old in the music business and that sometimes you have to do what you want to survive.
“Heartsongs” is a tune where Rivers sings about music that helped him during his formative years as a musician. “Everybody Get Dangerous” is more of a dance number, and “Dreamin’” could be a blend of “Holiday” and “Keep Fishin’”.
On “Thought I Knew” guitarist Brain Bell is given a spot to shine on vocals, while bassist Scott Shriner trades vocals with Rivers on “Cold Dark World” and drummer Pat Wilson trades spots with Rivers to sing on “Automatic”. This is a first for each member of the group to have a song to sing. The closer, “The Angel and the One”, is a ballad on par with “Only In Dreams”, thus closing a great album of new material.
If you loved The Blue Album and Pinkerton, stuck through The Green Album and Maladroit, and threw up over Make Believe, the phoenix has risen, and its color is Red.
