It's never easy to predict exactly which of his multiple personalities Rivers Cuomo will put on display when he returns from one of his side trips away from Planet Weezer -- the most recent of which took him to another stint at Harvard. Judging by the overall tone of
Make Believe, the granddaddy of emo is still in close touch with his inner geek, the socially inept outsider desperate for love and totally unsure where to look for it. That anxiety lurks at the core of sadly soaring hook fests like "Hold Me" and the obsessive "We Are All on Drugs" -- on which his yelp conveys all the tortured post-adolescent yearning of
Pinkerton's best moments. The disc, which clocks in at an epic (for Weezer) 45 minutes, has its share of unabashed rock moments, most notably the purposefully cheesy, inexorably driving "Beverly Hills," but the sonic palette is considerably broader than the band's earlier offerings. As often as not, the songs take surprising shapes -- from the neo–
Todd Rundgren dream-pop tone of "The Damage in Your Heart" to the airy, harmony-centered "Freak Me Out," on which Cuomo croons atop a synthetic beat like the bastard child of
Paul McCartney and one of the guys in
Naked Eyes. The band saves the biggest departure for last, closing the disc with the deliberately paced ballad "Haunt You Every Day," which takes seven full minutes to wind its way through a forest of piano and strings, leaving an appropriately misty wake.
Make Believe isn't rife with the sort of instantly contagious sing-alongs that normally mark Weezer discs, and the angst is tempered somewhat by a new sense of melodic maturity. But beneath the placid surface, there's still plenty of passion -- and that's something few bands can convey with the honesty of Weezer.
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