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Mar 4, 2019Black is fully replete with every sound Weezer could think to chuck on it, from "Too Many Thoughts in My Head"'s crazy funk guitar to Pat's double-tracked kits and looping beats to the labyrinthine, breathtaking basslines.
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Mar 4, 2019The Black Album feels like the most fully realized latter-day Weezer album: it may flagrantly draw from old and new elements of pop culture, yet it belongs to its own feverish world.
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Q MagazineFeb 27, 2019While lately the LA quartet's output has largely been preoccupied with reclaiming their crunchy alt-rock sound, The Black Album often exorcises it with synth and piano. It works superbly. [Apr 2019, p.118]
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Feb 27, 2019On Black they sound fully invested into exploring, and more than capable of handling, a new pop sound. This is a unique addition to Weezer’s discography that sees them preparing for the future, however bleak and overwhelming it might seem.
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Mar 1, 2019The cynical read of this would be that Cuomo is both hugely calculating and deeply inept at performing those calculations, but the experiments and strange asides on The Black Album don’t come across as trend-chasing so much as genuinely eclectic. ... Maybe it’s more important that Weezer’s idiosyncrasies feel honest again.
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Mar 5, 2019It’s not that The Black Album is a very bad album, just that it feels part of a larger calculus that’s so carefully planned out that it lacks any of the artistic spontaneity that their first two albums had, which is exactly what the band’s been missing ever since Pinkerton.
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Mar 4, 2019Even if he primarily composed on pan flute, it’d still be what it is--another edition of their signature precise, poker-faced California pop-rock. ... Though this time out the sense of irony is somewhat less blanched and the music a great deal more fun.
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Mar 1, 2019The highs occur when Weezer play it straight-ish.
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Feb 28, 2019It’s a great--albeit mis-matched--collection of songs.
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Mar 4, 2019There’s no emotional throughline on The Black Album, no grand statement that continues from one track to the next. The songs never blur together, but they also don’t tell a story as the sum of their parts. A sense of tonal whiplash ensues, and the album’s highlights are best enjoyed in isolation.
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Mar 19, 2019He implicitly tells you to “die, die” on the Slightly Stoopid-resembling Zombie Bastards, after all, a joyful retort to the haters who won’t shut up about how Weezer has become a meme in musical form. But Cuomo, ever the mercurial songwriter, later goes off over the pleasures of parasailing on the escapist, Paul McCartney-recalling High as a Kite. And that’s when Weezer (Black Album) peaks.
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Mar 4, 2019None of the songs on the Black Album are as garish, horrifying, or catchy as “Beverly Hills,” nor as totally committed to a one-dimensional concept as those of the White Album. By contrast, the Black Album sounds scattered, as if the comedy is beginning to lose definition.
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Feb 28, 2019This is the most disjointed record in Weezer’s discography. Its probably not the worst but its right there with Raditude and Make Believe.
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Mar 1, 2019Of course, The Black Album is not completely void of redeeming qualities, and there will likely be many listeners who are pleased with what they hear at times. Those listeners, however, may not be those who fell in love with the version of Weezer that existed in the middle of the ‘90s. Instead, the listeners within that sector may feel something comparable to watching a good friend make a bad decision.
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Kerrang!Feb 27, 2019On tracks like Can't Knock The Hustle, Piece Of Cake and High As A Kite, the smartness and deceptive simplicity is lost under a wash of electronic beats and un-catchy melodies. ... They sound boring. [23 Feb 2019, p.54]
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Feb 28, 2019Whilst it is undeniably their most experimental work, the record listens like an audio representation of Theresa May’s awkward robot-like dancing--confused, cringingly uncomfortable and desperately out of touch.
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Feb 27, 2019Weezer's latest is an utterly skippable collection that'd be entirely unremarkable if not for the fact it was released by Weezer.
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Mar 6, 2019With The Black Album, Weezer once again sounds insufferably uncomfortable with the notion of aging by devising the musical equivalent of getting hair plugs. ... A compilation of tracks lacking in quality and spat out at the end of a conveyer belt.
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Mar 7, 2019In simple summary, The Black Album makes The Teal Album sound like The Green Album, The Green Album sound like The Blue Album, and The Blue Album sound like the actual The White Album. The Beatles one. And all of it sounds like Weezer flowering into the absolute worst version of themselves.
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Mar 5, 2019Black Album lurches forward bloodlessly, with no clear direction but the sensation of the moment, which is always expiring. There's no getting this zombie back on track.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 33 out of 88
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Mixed: 32 out of 88
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Negative: 23 out of 88
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Mar 1, 2019
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Mar 1, 2019I love Weezer ,,,, Red, White and Blue ---- Black, Teal or whatever color they drop........ They're just Amazing !!!!!!!!!
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Mar 2, 2019