Review Summary: Their greed with envy is starting to show
After the bomb known as Pinkerton, the group had to step up their game. So Rivers, Mikey, Rivers, and Pat had to make a change involving the overall sound of there music, employing a more natural poppy sound that would later influence all of their albums to come, and had previously only been heard a little bit on Blue Album. This is the best direction the band could have took because it's probably the most fun album the band has to date, up to this point.
But you wouldn't know that based of the first song simply entitled Don't Let Go. It's probably one of the worst songs on the album, and its a jarringly simple tale about the dangers of powers in relationships. I don't really like this weird tone of the song and it makes it feel really odd but it does give the impression that Weezer are at least trying to write about things that aren't nerdy. Where things really pick up are at the masterpiece of the album called Hash Pipe. It is definitely one of the best Weezer songs of all time even though it doesn't even feature any of there trademark sound, instead replacing their parts with grunge and dirt. It works though because of its depressing nature and great lyrics and melody, along with its stunning simplicity which just makes it way better.
Island in the Sun is one of the other best songs on the album mostly because of its great melody, but then comes a big missed step: the rest of the album sounds largely the smae which I just don't care for. The album is a cool sounding one but not fit for entire songs and it never works with any of the samey sounding songs. There is some other great things though like the catchy Crab, and tearful closer O Girlfriend. Overall its not one of the best albums by Weezer but it's certainly up there. This is their rise to power.
