Weezer – Hurley

When Weezer announced that, for the first time in their career, they’d be releasing a new album on an independent record label – Epitaph Records, people got excited. What did this mean? Will they go back to their older routes? Will they make up for some of their recent disappointing releases? Will they drop some of their newer gimmicks?  After all, Lil Wayne and Hindu choruses seem out of place on a Weezerrecord. The resulting answer to all those questions came in the form of Hurley – an album that some people have loved and some people hated. However, I can’t help but think Weezer are back on track here.

Now yes, there are a few major hiccups throughout the ten track album – Where’s My Sex? Really? Come on guys, you can do better than that. However, for the most part, Weezer seemed to have rekindled their nerd-rock aspirations that made them the geek’s favourite rock band in the first place.

The album kicks off with Memories, a song that sounds like old Weezer and has Rivers Cuomo singing about old Weezer. The autobiographical track, packed with an anthemic chorus that begs to be sung along with, has an undeniable charm and places Hurley squarely on the path to success.  The album continues on that path with the pop-rock Ruling Me and Trainwrecks – a song that is sure to become aWeezer classic in no time and once again features an autobiographical lyrical slant.

They slow it down with some mellower tunes: the acoustic track Unspoken (which hints towards an Oasis influence) along with the lighter-waiving Hang On and both offer a nice little breath of fresh air. Sadly,Run Away is pretty damn bad. Smart Girls falls somewhere in the middle of the pack: it’s catchy as hell, but kind of dumb and electronicky – and yes, I know that’s not a word.

Still, as a whole, Hurley isn’t bad. It’s fun, it’s catchy, it’s geeky to boot.  Rivers Cuomo is one of the best pop writers around today – that’s irrefutable.  Maybe if he slowed it down a bit and took his best songs for one complete album instead of a new album every year, then we wouldn’t get some of the filler tracks that we do. Nevertheless, Hurley is enjoyable. It won’t become as legendary as The Blue Album but it’s a step in the right direction for the kings of nerd rock.