It's sad for us too

For lack of something better, here's a couple of album reviews:


Weezer-Make Believe (out May 10)

I really wanted this album to be good, but Make Believe is a disappointment. Flat out a disappointment. The guitar tone is shoddy, the drum parts are monotonous, Rivers' voice is weak (but not in that good angsty Pinkerton way) and the lyrics. . . Hoo-boy the lyrics. I think Rivers is trying to be the great poet that everyone tells him he is, but it's just not there. He goes so far out of his way to make sure that everyone knows there is more to him than the skeevy rock star, but in reality, the depth of his pool never goes more than about four inches. Take, for instance, these lyrics from Best Friend:

When everything is wrong I'll come talk to you
You make things alright when I'm feeling blue
You are such a blessing and I wont be messing
With the one thing that brings light to all of my darkness
You are my best friend
and I love you,
and I love you
Yes I do

Sweet, yes - but aren't we in our thirties now?

The single, Beverly Hills is a classic Food Court song - in fact I heard it at the mall this weekend. We Are All On Drugs is about as sophomoric as the title implies. Maybe there's a deeper meaning here, but I couldn't get past the jaw-dropping stupidity of the lyrics to see anything other than a 35 year-old middle schooler. Freak Me Out is another lyrical wasteland - and the little "City streets at night" chorus sounds like a direct rip of The Postal Service's Recycled Air.

There are a few good things on Make Believe - Brian and Scott's backing vocals are great, and the piano parts are very nicely executed. (Granted, backing vocals and piano aren't much, but hey, at least it's something?) Perfect Situation and This Is Such A Pity will probably be growers (which is to say that I didn't cringe on first hearing them) and I did like The Damage In Your Heart which sounds like it could be a Pinkerton B-side.

I could go on about the brilliance of Blue, the heartbreak of Pinkerton, the pop genius of Green - but it's all been done to death. Weezer is a one-album wonder, and they owe their continued popularity to the cult that is their fans. The band says they will support this new venture until the end of the year, at which point they will decide on whether to go on or not. Sad as it may be, I think it's time we all gave a last final =w= and said goodbye.



Queens of the Stone Age - Lullabies to Paralyze

"This one goes out to Queens of the Trust Fund. You slept on my floor and now I'm sleeping through your motherfucking records." - Lyrics from the Dwarves Massacre

Hearing Lullabies to Paralyze immediately brought back a 1977 vision of my best friend and I sneaking into her older brother's room and finding a patchouli-infused oasis of lava lamps, op-art black light posters and a bunch of funny looking "cigarettes". Perhaps the Queens should find a way to include a few of those funny cigs with their new CD as that's the only thing that would make listening to that yawn-fest tolerable. The album starts out with a faux-moody spoken number featuring token vocalist Mark Lanegan, then jumps into the fairly decent Medication and Everybody Knows You Are Insane. The latter has a really nice vibe-y guitar intro and turns smoky-crunchy towards the middle. The single, Little Sister, could be a great song, but it seems to be missing something. The remainder of the album drags on to the point that you begin to glare at the CD player hoping that will cause the song to end faster (perhaps they took the title of the album a little too seriously?) The overall feel after enduring listening to the entire thing was "thank the gods that's over!"

It was hard not to write this from the point of view of a disgruntled Nick Olivieri fan (the former QOTSA bass player was sacked by Josh Homme just prior to the recording of this album) and while listening to Lullabies, all I could think was, "Where's the bass?" Homme may "...write over 90% of the Queens material" but it was definitely Olivieri's powerful low-end attack and trademark screams that made the Queens.

In the end, I'd say that this one ain't worth the dough unless you've got a lot of funny cigarettes lying about.



Unmercifully yours,
S