Maladjusted and Dreaming

lmost exactly one year in the rearview mirror, let's face it: Weezer's Green Album stands as a major disappointment. After the breakthrough, brilliant pop of the Blue Album, the ambitious, if flawed, strumming of Pinkerton and a five-year hiatus, Weezer served its hungry fans 29 minutes of mostly lifeless, entirely disposable pop-rock that couldn't have even satisfied Calista Flockhart's less-than-voracious appetite.

A full rotation around the sun later, Weezer found itself at a crossroads with Maladroit. The band could either embrace their quirkiness and sense of musical adventure that had endeared them to so many lonely and lovable faux dorks in the '90s, or they could continue to pound out three-minute nuggets of fool's gold, a la everything but "Hash Pipe" on the Green Album.

So, taking a nod from the politicos in Washington, on Maladroit, Weezer strikes a compromise that is neither completely deplorable nor thoroughly satisfying. This is an album that situates the powerful emotional candidness of "Slave" immediately before the wholly generic vapidity of "Fall Together," on which Rivers Cuomo--the band's lead singer/sole songwriter/spiritual life force--has the brazen audacity to sing, "Anytime you want me, baby, I'll be around," as if it's the first time anyone's ever muttered those pathetically cliched words on vinyl.

This tug between the daring Weezer of old and the thoroughly sterile Weezer of 2001 makes Maladroit such a frustrating listen. When the guitars crash on "American Gigolo"--the band's deepest foray into metal--or when Cuomo poignantly muses on the pitfalls of love over weepy guitar pluckings on "Death and Destruction," Weezer sounds so much more vital than the candy puff of "Possibilities" and "Love Explosion" would lead one to believe.

Cuomo, a complex and quirky character, oftentimes tries to obscure his essential weirdness in his music by constructing sappy pop facades. However, only when he dares to tear these down and play around with the rubble does he allow Weezer to play at its most ambitious best.