Of course the single is bad, but I gotta say, I'm only on "Francesca" but this rules so far. Haven't really revisited the last two (definitely not Spring) but this is pretty easily the best of the bunch so far. Production sounds better to me and those first two songs rip. "Francesca" is pretty classic Weezer.
I'm honestly just shocked by the reactions to these EP's. I feel like it's Weezer fatigue or something, because these are clearly better than more than half of their catalogue. Songs have been written via spreadsheet for a decade now. The funny thing is, I'm pretty sure Rivers purposefully got away from that method for this project.
I know the lyrics have been written by spreadsheet for a long time, but SZNS is the first time the music feels written that way too
Fine okay I'll say it, "Tastes Like Pain" is fucking awesome lol but I also like when Rivers is weird and does whatever the fuck he wants. A lot of Spring and Summer felt so plasticky to me, and this is the total opposite. It's like White Album with a touch of Make Believe.
It's always been both. Sorted by tempo/key/etc. But yeah, the unusual arrangements are one of the coolest things about this project.
This EP is better than at least four Weezer albums and one of them is Van Weezer lol that album fake rips and this one actually rips
I think The End of the Game and Beginning of the End are both a lot better than anything on these EP's.
to me it sounds like a combination of direct guitars (i.e. they didnt mic a speaker), band members recording separately, and some sus choices in the drum production adding up to a kinda artificial, uncanny sound. It’s like really sculpted pop production on rock music. I don’t mind it myself, but it’s disarming. The snare sound on this and Summer sounds like it should be on a different album. EDIT: i dunno if anyone else spends a lotta time with music production, but specifically these records sound to me like tons of saturators like Decap and Saturn, and like a tape emulation like Ozone’s with the bias and harmonics turned way up. Maybe even at 7.5ips. I’m kinda hooked on setting the harmonics on a light tape distress at .1 rn, I only use it in mastering but it kinda gives this frizzle that exaggerates the harmonics in an additive way.
Van Weezer isn’t amazing or anything, but despite its title, tour, and prerelease marketing implying it was gonna be a big gimmick it’s really just proof Rivers can still pump out quality material when he puts his head down and writes straightforward rock songs. Pretty much none of SZNZ does that for me. I respect that he’s still taking creative swings, but almost none of them work for me on these three eps.
Also I think some of VW and probably a lot of these songs have programmed drums, I think that’s a big part of the production/mix sounding flat.
I think a lot of the stuff they're doing creatively actually works for me, I like a lot of what they're doing musically on these EP's and I actually wish they went further with some of that stuff. I just think a lot of the songs themselves are kinda weak.