Weezer

By Julie Seabaugh

Thursday, June 5, 2008 | midnight

Don’t let the current Portishead and Nine Inch Nails releases fool you; this is not 1994. Same goes for the sixth full-length from Rivers Cuomo & Co.; once the adolescent outburst of opener “Troublemaker” subsides, there are few traces of the same band that made geek-pop cool with “Undone—The Sweater Song” and “Buddy Holly.”

Seems the notoriously prolific frontman up and matured, having gotten married, sired a daughter and even sprouted a respectable mustache since the release of 2005’s Make Believe. The shape-shifting “Dreamin’,” for example, features a narrator who realizes his nature-loving reveries will soon come to an end with the onset of bills and family life. “Gotta be a big boy/Gotta pick up my toys,” Cuomo admits as backing vocals chant, “I really want a chance.” There’s also the traditionally Weezery (i.e., up-tempo and catchy as all get out) first single “Pork and Beans,” which, following in the Hollywood-bashing tradition of “Beverly Hills,” decries the conventional “cool” of the music industry; Old Man Cuomo shakes his fist at young ’uns and mutters about Rogaine, the gym and not giving “a hoot about what you think.”

Proffering an explanation for the album’s stylistic schizophrenia, “Heart Songs”—Cuomo’s defiantly showing-his-age ode to the tunes that defined him—does so with the vaguely R&B croon of a dozen boy bands cashing in on the comeback craze. Perhaps in need of a nap, Cuomo gives guitarist Brian Bell, bassist Scott Shriner and drummer Pat Wilson each a go on lead vocals (“Thought I Knew,” “Cold Dark World” and “Automatic,” respectively), and the results are an indulgent mixed bag. Then again, after withstanding the six-minute, tongue-in-cheek genre mash-up “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn),” even listeners could use a nice long rest.

The bottom line: **