More than OK Human

 

On January 18th, Weezer officially announced that their fourteenth album would be called OK Human and that it would be released on January 29th, i.e. 10 days later. On January 21st, i.e. 3 days. later, we were served with the album’s first single, “All my favorite songs”. We then only had a short week to wait until the full LP was there for everyone to listen. Note: you will find that we are pretty good at math over in the Sondz team…

The story behind this rushed release, other than the fact that everybody is doing it nowadays (see Cardi B‘s recent bombshell announcement) comes from Covid-19, or rather its production implications. Like many artists, the pandemic forced singer Rivers Cuomo and colleagues to change their plans quite drastically over 2020: their original idea was to launch Van Weezer, an official return to heavy sounds, then finish work on OK Human. However, with orchestrations for the latter already recorded a while back — at Abbey Road studios no less, it seemed fitting to move things around a little bit…

And we definitely will not criticize the band for giving people what they want — more new material — especially of that caliber. Built around orchestral compositions directly reminiscent of the more sophisticated 60’s pop experimentations (see: Brian Wilson’s Pet Sounds phase), the album is clearly not big on riffs. Instead, it offers a wildly entertaining series of tight pop gems delivered with all the delicacy a 38-piece orchestra can bring. You can hear it straight from album opener “All my favorite songs” and onwards through the entire piece: it’s been a while since we heard anything quite like it, and we are much not complaining…

It would be hard to a) pick out individual songs, as the consistency of the album is truly outstanding; b) stop listening before the end, especially given that the whole thing is only 30-minutes long. What else do you have to do anyway, watch Netflix? Don’t: this will be better use of your time, we assure you. Also, let us try to talk about a few stand-out pieces if we must: “Grapes of wrath” is what every pop song should sound like — simple, yet perfect; “Playing my piano” would probably be an enjoyable listen for Sir Paul McCartney; album closer “La Breat Tar Pits” can’t help but remind us of the Rolling Stones’ “She’s a rainbow“… all excellent references, clearly.

In short, OK Human stands as a beautiful break from all the weird and/or depressing things happening around us these days. We would only have one complaint, really: couldn’t it have been longer?