'Everything will be Alright in the End' is the album that got me into Weezer. I had heard of the band through 'Beverly Hills' and 'Buddy Holly' and so when, in early 2015, I saw this song land on a bunch of 'Best album of the year' lists I decided to check it out - and now I've reviewed nearly all of their discography so it obviously did it's job. The album was released in October 2014, four years after 'Hurley', a massive break by Weezer's standards - and it appears that the break did Rivers Cuomo, Brian Bell, Patrick Wilson and Scott Shriner a lot of good. Because 'EWBAITE' is easily the best Weezer album since the 90s.
It starts off with the anthemic 'Ain't got nobody', one of the best album openers in all of Weezer's discography and it even has what Weezer had sorely been missing for several albums - Guitar solos! 'Back to the Shack' is a much appreciated apology for the likes of 'Raditude', that still manages to rock out and even has a cool music video set on the moon. Next, 'Eulogy for a rock band' carries on the run of great songs, with lyrics paying homage to the greats of rock, showing the band once again reminding themselves that they are a ROCK BAND and not popstars who put Lil Wayne on their tracks.
'Lonely Girl' is the best song thus far, with a non-creepy song about girls that's extremely refreshing, as it was beginning to become unbearable. It's also the most 'Blue album' sounding song on the album. 'I've had it up to here' is an outstanding tune about Cuomo's anger at fans rejecting all of his experiments over the past decade, while finally admitting that he was trying to appeal to the masses maybe a tad too much. Nonetheless, the soaring falsetto in the chorus and the crunchy guitars locking perfectly with the backing vocals.
'The British are Coming' is quite jarring in lyrical terms - a historical account of events in the American Revolutionary War - but is awesome nonetheless. 'Da Vinci' and 'Go Away' are my least favourite songs off the record, but are still pretty great. 'Da Vinci' suffers from whistling and some pop culture references that will age pretty poorly. 'Go Away' has the opposite, with overly simple lyrics about a break-up, but it is great to hear a female voice on a Weezer song - provided by Bethany Cosentino from Best Coast - and both songs do a good job of carrying momentum.
Then the album hits another soaring high with 'Cleopatra', a song with amazing guitar licks sprinkled throughout and the best bridge of any Weezer song in a decade. It's hard to believe Weezer could top this, but they do! 'Foolish Father' starts off dark and brooding, before the chorus has an apologetic tone and the outro has an uplifting choir sending us off with the title and message of the album - 'Everything will be Alright in the End'. This is all held together by the main lyrics of the track, which act as a thematic bookend to 'Say it Ain't So' and show Cuomo finally realising what his father went through due to the experiences he's had himself.
And so the album end- Huh? What are these three songs tacked onto the end? That would be 'The Futurescope Trilogy', a group of two instrumentals built around the central piece 'Anonymous'. They have no reason to be on the disc, but I'm so glad that they are. It's like Weezer making up for all those years with basic 4 chord pop songs with 4 minutes of pure guitar, bass and drum perfection and arguably the most anthemic song on all of 'EWBAITE' sandwiched between them. When Weezer come back after a so many mediocre albums and end their comeback album with the most incredible closer of any album released the entire year, you know they haven't just returned - they've returned better than anyone could have ever predicted.
9.5/10
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