Weezer - the White Album (review)

I love Weezer.

They have to be one of the bands I've had on constant rotation over the last 18 years or so, and I rarely get tired of hearing anything by them.

Apart from 'Death To False Metal' (whatever that album was meant to be I have no idea).

A few weeks ago my friend and fellow Mashed Potato Hed Mat (also a big Weezer fan) brought two new singles to my attention, 'King of the World' and 'California Kids' - and this was great news to me as it was beginning to feel like it had been a while since there was any new Weezer in my life...

I listened to the songs, and... well, in all honesty, I wasn't very impressed by what I was hearing and having not known a new album was on it's way so imminently, started to dread what it might be like.

Then last week it appeared on Spotify - the White Album.

I was worried and happy all at once and as soon as I spotted it (I can't think of a decent Spotify pun right now, sorry!) I gave it a listen through. I wasn't impressed. In fact, my exact words to Mat were; "Flicked through, it's boring as fuck."

I was sad.

But me being me, the eternal hoper, gave it another listen... this time with louder volume whilst I was working on some of my monster illustrations. The album finished (it is a super short album, with most tracks barely hitting or overhanging the 3 minute mark) and even though it hadn't had my full attention I felt like I'd just listened to a really nice album.

Every single Weezer album has it's own "thing" that I can't quite put my finger on, but I guess I'll just call it "Weezerness". In fact, Weezer could quite easily be a singles band, but there's something about listening to an entire album of theirs that leaves me satisfied, despite the occassional 'WTF is this?!' moment that has happened on probably most of their albums over the last few years, at least the albums since the Green Album. I listened again, and louder.

It's a grower. I'm not sure what the band were aiming to do calling it the White Album, because by the Beatles standards, it's definitely not their best album, and won't be their most memorable, BUT it is actually a fine piece of work that is really consistent in Weezerness. But old skool Weezerness, which has been lacking for a while. It has it's Pinkerton moments - albeit a bit subdued, with tracks like the King of the World single and Wind in our Sails - and it also has some Blue/Green/Make Believe moments. In fact, the thing the White Album is missing is the cheesey moments we've become used to over the last decade, there's no 'Pork And Beans', there's no '(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To', and there's definitely no 'Buddy Holly'. But that's actually a nice breather for a change, and it actually lends to show just how great a song writer lead singer Rivers Cuomo is - as if I needed to even say that.

The White Album is solid, and takes us back (in a weird way) to a more mature sounding Weezer. That's why I feel that it's got some Pinkerton about it.

Each track has the typical Rivers Cuomo trademark sound, which to me is the minor chord twists he puts in to every happy sounding song which to me is exactly how this band have manged to stay unique and memorable without becoming an embarrasing old man boy band. The nerdcore element is still in there, you just have to listen for it, perhaps with a bit more effort nowadays, but as I said, Weezer might just have grown up now. Which isn't a bad thing at all, as I'd love to be able to still be listening to this band when I'm 60 (if my ears still work!) without thinking they got too poppy or ran out of good songs.

This album is still growing on me, and it's so short I have to keep playing it, but that doesn't stop the chorus lines getting stuck in my humming glands, and although initially I'd have given it a terrible 3 out of 7, at least 5 plays later I'm giving it a 5.5 and I expect it to hit a 6 within the next few days... it won't hit a 7, but hopefully that means Weezer will keep trying for many years to come.

Summary:

Stinks of Pinkerton, feels a bit like Blue Album with sprinklings of the others, but most importantly, it still sounds like Weezer, and IS Weezer.

Rockingham revisited...

About a week ago I wrote a review about the new Nerf Herder album 'Rockingham'.

Although I gave it a respectable 5 out of 7, I am ashamed and deserve a slap for doing so.

Having not been able to remove ANY of the songs from my head this week, and playing the album about three times through each day, I can now honestly say that it deserves a full 7 out of 7.

I originally said something that I need to clarify... I said in my original review:

"It's not their best album" which sounds a bit negative, and suggests it's not brilliant, but what I meant by this is that it's not my favourite Nerf Herder album, which is still true. However... I think I now love it just as much as my favourite Nerf Herder album 'Nerf Herder IV'.

In fact, having listened to Rockingham so much now, there's actually a lot of similarity between the two albums and if you squidged both together to make a mega album, it would indeed be MEGA!

That being said, Rockingham as a standalone album is now officially a classic Nerf album in my eyes (ears!).

There's only one song I'm not keen on on Rockingham and that's the track 'Jackie Got Married', but I only don't like it because I don't get it, and have no idea who Jackie is or what the song is about - I'm sure it's funny to Americans though (?!).

The opening track 'Portland' (about Portland, Oregon, funnily enough) is one of my favourites because I've been there and it seems accurate!

Each time I listen to the album, I end up with a new favourite song from it.

The thing I love about Nerf Herder is their signature sound, which although is pop-punk in it's essence, is laced with so many other styles or what I call Nerf-isms, such as the rock and sci-fi elements that are also thrown into a big blender with a generous helping of nerdy geeky fun. There's really no other band on the planet that can do what Nerf Herder does or sound how they sound, not without falling flat on their ass.

Lead singer and songwriter Parry Gripp is actually a living genius, and if you've never heard any Nerf Herder, I guarantee you've heard something he's written, like this for example (which I dare not press play on because it's an ear worm that will literally eat your brain for the rest of your life once you've heard it...)

By the way, if you dared to press play and listen... I'm sorry. But only a little bit.

Anyway, yeah, Rockingham = amazing, Nerf Herder = amazing.

That's about all I have to say.

That, and HURRY UP AND DO ANOTHER ALBUM! Oh, and come and play in the UK again before I die please.

Album review: Nerf Herder 'Rockingham'

I've been waiting for a new Nerf Herder album for what feels like forever.

But it's only actually been eight years. ONLY.

If you're not familiar with the work of the 90s nerd-core pop-punk band, or perhaps only know them from their theme song for Buffy the Vampire, then first of all slap yourself, and then go and listen to all of their albums in order - immediately.

Nerf Herder are one of my favourite bands of all time, and one of the first live bands I ever saw. I was lucky enough to chat with some of them after they supported No Use For A Name (another of my all-time favourite bands) in Portsmouth way back in 1999/2000 and I still have a ticket for that show with various band members squiggles on.

Anyway, yesterday saw the release of their fifth full length album, Rockingham.

This album was crowdfunded, and seems to have been a long time in the making. Alas, I was not one of the people to donate towards the album because I'm way too skint to do such things, and am a struggling artist myself, however, they'll get enough online plays and plugs from me to cover the cost of any donation I'd have given if I was able to.

So was it worth the wait?

Well... yes. I have to say straight off the bat that it's not their best album, but having only listened to it twice before writing this review, and blasting it as I write, I have to say it's a grower and one thing that is a good sign is that when I woke up this morning I had at least two hooks from the album running through my head. Having said that, it's not their worst album either, because... well... in my opinion they don't have a bad album, which is a big achievement in my book as most bands end up squirging out some shit at some point in their careers. Luckily, or perhaps cleverly in this case, Nerf Herder haven't done that yet. I'd say this album is as good as 2002s 'American Cheese' which admittedly took me a while to get used to as it seemed quite different to the the albums prior to this release, but was actually a nice development of their pop-punk sound, adding synths and keyboards, which then really came into their own on the Nerf Herder IV album.

I really like all of their previous work, and my favourite, and in my opinion their strongest album is the aforementioned Nerf Herder IV released in 2008. The songs on Rockingham are laced with Nerf Herder's typical catchy chorus lines and funny lyrics, but I feel that the subject matter of the new album falls slightly short of the mark in terms of the silliness and down right bizarreness of their previous stuff.

It almost shows a more grown up Nerf Herder, with slightly more rocky, slower numbers, like a middle-age man reminiscing about the old days. The band are all in their mid 40s now after all.

That being said, they still know how to make some great songs, with 'We Opened for Weezer' being one of my favourites from the album 
and this was one of the songs stuck in my brain this morning! There's plenty of geeky goodness which fans have come to expect from Nerf Herder on the Rockingham album, covering all the usual Sci-Fi bases, with Star Wars and Doctor Who references, and a song about blaming Bill Murray for a proper Ghostbusters 3 film never happening. Speaking of Ghostbusters, I'll write a seperate post about the new film and my views on it soon.

Anyway, Rockingham is over way too quickly, and maybe it's just because it's been so long a wait for new songs from Nerf Herder that I'm left wanting more and at the same time not feeling completely full up by what Rockingham has to offer (in a good way because I want more, MORE DAMMIT!) and I can only hope that this is the start of a pick up in momentum for the band and that this release is proactive and means that there is more to come and not something that was only done because the fans made them do it (if that makes sense?!).

A year or two ago I honestly thought I'd never get to see Nerf Herder at a show ever again, and I hope this fear can now be removed from my worried mind and that they'll finally come back to the UK before either I die, or one of them does. 2016 is being unrelenting in it's taking away of awesome people, so I hope both they and myself can dodge it's evil claws long enough to be able to be in the same venue as each other one more time!

Anyway, to sum up, Nerf Herder have so far done no wrong with their output, and although the new album is not an immediate classic, I know it's going to reveal more to my ears as I give it more listens, and if I can't shake the choruses from my brain for the next few days then I know it's earned it's place in my 'What My Ears Liked in 2016' playlist.

I'm giving Rockingham 5 out of 7. I don't care what anybody else thinks.

Listen to Rockingham by Nerf Herder on Spotify here: