Album Review: Weezer – Pacific Daydream
2 min read
I feel like when asked about our guilty musical pleasures, Weezer is a band that very frequently pops up in discussion, at least for myself! I would consider it genuinely hard to find anybody who at some point in their journey of musical discovery, hasn’t found a song, video or entire album by the L.A Geek-rock quartet that they haven’t sang their hearts out, or revelled in awkward delight to! With a literally colourful back catalogue of material reaching way back to the 1990’s, Weezer have been a mainstay of the world’s rock music scene and have produced along the way, some of the catchiest, most infectious anthems of a generation! Any news of a release by these guys is good news in my opinion, and 2017’s Pacific Daydream is no different.
Mexican Fender is the first track on this record, which is all things Weezer in the sense of its heavy and hooky guitar riffs and quite pacy, jangly choruses that provide the back track to a awkward, edgy lyrics about everyday American heartbreak. Lead singer Rivers Cuomo narrates the tale with distinct emotive qualities and an almost adolescent charm that has become one of the bands most recognisable and loved traits. Feels Like Summer and Happy Hour, I really like for their more poppy vibes, with programmed drums and a punchy off-beat rhythms that maintain the good feeling of a classic Weezer album, but offer the band’s long-time listeners more of glimpse into a perhaps different, mainstream direction to their music.
All in all, Pacific Daydream is everything you would really expect to find in a fresh album from a band as popular and ridiculously listenable as Weezer – catchy songs that will be stuck in your head for days, slightly off-kilter songwriting and an underlying good sense of humour, which as stated before, I would challenge anyone to say they dislike!
