"Mexican Fender" opens
Pacific Daydream with big, crunching arena rock guitars, but that's the only throwback thing about the album. A deliberate reaction to 2016's
Weezer (White Album), a record where producer
Jake Sinclair encouraged the band to act like it was 1994,
Pacific Daydream is a thoroughly modern affair, complete with drum loops and electronic flourishes, all wrapped up in a shiny package. Despite all of this contemporary flair,
Weezer aren't exactly pandering to a younger audience. Much of
Pacific Daydream is gleaming mall-pop on par with
Beck's
Colors: music made by veteran alt-rockers who are as aware of trends as they are of their own middle age, so they try to split the difference between the two. Such concentrated fusion appeals to an eccentric like
Rivers Cuomo, who cleverly writes a tribute to
the Beach Boys that doesn't sound a thing like
Brian Wilson and drops a reference to
Stevie Ray Vaughan on a song that's designed to play during happy hours at chain restaurants. This odd subversive streak tends to alienate fans who prefer
Cuomo's emo side -- a side that's not entirely absent here, but songs that start in that fashion usually wind up bending back to his current obsessions. That's the pleasure of
Pacific Daydream: beneath its glossy surface, there's not only plenty of melody, but a perverse sense of humor that keeps the record from sounding too smooth and settled. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine