Weezer

Brian Bell: guitar/vocals
Rivers Cuomo: guitar/vocals
Pat Wilson: drums/vocals
Scott Shriner:  bass/vocals

“I’m ‘a do the things that I want to do/I ain’t got a thing to prove to you.” “Pork and Beans”

The new Weezer album on DGC/Interscope is their sixth studio effort since 1994, the third to carry the band’s name, but destined to be referred to as “The Red Album,” following their debut “The Blue Album” and 2001’s “The Green Album.”

Their first release since 2005’s Make Believe, the band was inspired to experiment in the studio like they never had before. You can still hear their tongue-in-cheek irony on semi-autobiographical songs like “Pork and Beans,” a hit single about writing a hit single that includes the classic line, “Timbaland knows the way to reach the top of the chart/Maybe if I work with him I can perfect the art,” and the typically rebellious “Troublemaker” (“I’m a troublemaker, Never been a faker/Doin’ things my own way and never giving up”). 

But the band shows its musical reach has expanded on large-canvas/wide-screen set pieces like the epic “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn),” whose falsetto, stacked harmonies and Gregorian chants offer nothing less than a comprehensive history of Western music. The closing “The Angel and the One” is a spiritual reverie that evolved from a “standard pop-rock song” into a soaring petition to the heavens, thanks to songwriter Rivers Cuomo continuing to hammer away on his guitar with the melody until he literally came out the other side.

“One of my greatest challenges this time was to write songs that didn’t have the same old verse-chorus-bridge structure,” he says.

“We were fearless in our approach, from songwriting to arranging and even song choice. Whichever tracks we were most excited about got on the album,” says guitarist Brian Bell, who achieved a lifelong goal of having a song on a Weezer album with “Thought I Knew,” which he wrote and sings lead on.

The Red Album offers some of Rivers Cuomo’s most personal work on tracks such as “Heart Songs,” where he reminisces about the music wafting out of the radio growing up, name-checking everyone from Gordon Lightfoot and Eddie Rabbit to ABBA, Devo, Pat Benatar and Quiet Riot, and the playful childhood romp, “Everybody Get Dangerous” (“I didn’t really tip cows for fun, but my friends did,” he says).

“We’ve grown as a team,” Rivers says about the recording process, which started out with producer Rick Rubin at a pair of Malibu studios, then continued with the band on their own before they teamed up with Garret “Jacknife” Lee (R.E.M., Bloc Party, Snow Patrol, U2) for the first single, “Pork and Beans,” and “Troublemaker.”

“We tried to branch out instrumentally and with the arrangements,” says Pat, who played guitar and synthesizer on “Automatic,” a song he wrote and sang. “Just get a little more open with the sounds, not quite so close and dense.”

Influences were plentiful in the making of the new album. “I was listening to a lot of ‘90s hair metal when I came up with ‘Cold Dark World’,” says bassist Scott Shriner who wrote the music and traded vocals with Rivers on the song.

 “I am running/Through the meadow/And the sun is shining on me,” sings Rivers in “Dreamin’,” a Beatlesesque/Beach Boys soundscape that describes his feeling of confidence. “And when I’m dreamin’/I know that it’s all right.”

The Red Album shows those dreams coming true, not just for Rivers, but the rest of the band.

“I ain’t gonna wear the clothes that you like/I’m fine and dandy with the me inside/One look in the mirror and I’m tickled pink/I don’t give a hoot about what you think.” “Pork and Beans.”

Weezer continue to do things their own way.