Weezer has played a huge role in my love for music. Their first two albums, Weezer (The Blue Album) and Pinkerton I have loved since the first track was put on my computer. Their brand new rarities collection titled “Death To False Metal” was released on Tuesday, November 2nd alongside with the reissue of their classic album, Pinkerton. The album features ten new tracks all of which were recorded earlier in Weezer's career at various times. All of these songs, the band had took in the studio this year to edit and tweak them.
The album opens with a song called “Turning Up The Radio”. Weezer's front man Rivers Cuomo had written this song with a handful of Youtube users. This was the result of his “Let's Write a Song Sawng” project. This project consisted of many different steps and many different youtubers. In the end, this song came out to be a catchy pop song. Nothing more. Although fun to listen to, it is no masterpiece.
The next track on the album is “I Don't Want Your Loving”. This song goes back to 2003 when the band were getting ready for their hit album Make Believe. They recorded a huge amount of demos on acoustic guitar. This was one of those songs. They rerecorded it with a full band for the album and it turned out quite good compared to the acoustic demo.
After that is another Make Believe demo called “Blowin' My Stack”. This is easily one of the highlights of this record. It is a great uplifting song. The acoustic guitar overlapping a heavy crunch-sounding guitar sounds very neat. Also, the guitar solo is quite refreshing after hearing a full Weezer album without any guitar solos. This song is definitely worth a listen if you get any free time.
The song after that is “Losing My Mind”. It is an emotional song where Cuomo explains that he is literally losing his mind in a mild sense. This song is pretty cool to listen to every once in a while. This song does tend to bore me the most on this album though. It is an OKAY track though.
After “Losing My Mind” comes “Everyone”. This is also another highlight for me. This song was recorded during their hiatus (The mystery years) in the 1997 and 1998 region. It is a fast grungy nirvana sounding tune. Although there are some problems with this song (Repetitiveness and it sounds like a Nirvana rip-off), this song is definitely going to stand out. The guitar solo and the little post-solo thing is very very cool. The post-solo is very dark and almost eerie in a good way.
“I'm A Robot” is the next track. This is another Make believe demo I believe. This is a very cool song. It sounds like old school pop. It is very upbeat and uplifting. I know I have said this a lot in this review, but I will say it again, the solo in this song is very nice to hear.
Then comes “Trampoline”. This another song recording during their hiatus. This song doesn't stand out much for me, but from people I have heard from, this is the highlight. It is just a generic song for me. I like it, but it is nothing special for me. It just sounds like an average Green Album era Weezer song, which is exactly what it is.
Here is where the album starts to go down hill with “Odd Couple”. You can just tell this song is going to be bad from the first line, “I got a PC, you got a Mac, I'm giving you flak for your AirPort ”. Weezer has always been a fun witty band, but there's no reason to give us such a silly stupid lyric. This song is nothing awful, it is just no where near good. It sounds like it came from the lows of Raditude. The track that continues this downslope is “Autopilot”. This song is MUCH worse than “Odd Couple”. It sounds like Weezer trying to be Devo and brutally failing. I really don't have much to say about this song besides the fact that I skipped it every listen besides the first.
The album closes with a cover of the song “Unbreak My Heart”. This song most certainly revives the album. It is nothing perfect, but it is far better than the last two songs. It is neat to hear the emotion in a Weezer song again, although it really isn't even a Weezer song. I guess this was a cool way to end this album.
As I am writing this I am listening to the album, and I must say, it is a fun listen. It has a semi-well flow. I would probably rather listen to Hurley, but hell, Hurley was a quality record. I'd say out of the hundreds of songs Rivers has in his vaults, he could have found better, but I am happy with this collection. The lyrics are kind of lame with a fetish for silly lines like the “doggie” lines throughout the album and the other stupid lines. But I can't ask for everything. I guess overall, it is nice to hear some songs I haven't heard from Weezer. I will have a few of these songs on my Itunes playlist for a while probably.
Highlights : Blowin' My Stack, Everyone, and the artwork.
Music : 5 (not their best, not their worst)
Lyrics : 4 (more dumb Cuomo lyrics continued from Raditude)
Artwork : 10 (Probably the best part of the album)
Overall : 5
Overall : 5
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