HOZIER
"Wasteland, Baby!"
BOTTOM LINE: The "Take Me to Church" singer's sophomore CD is less solemn.
Hozier hasn't scaled back.
The Irish singer-songwriter, who made a giant international splash with the massive 2013 hit "Take Me to Church," is still tackling big topics with big, cinematic sounds on "Wasteland, Baby!" (Columbia), his sophomore album.
The gorgeous first single "Nina Cried Power" pays tribute to soul singers. Backed by Mavis Staples and a gospel choir, he name-checks everyone from Nina Simone and Billie Holiday to James Brown and Joni Mitchell. On "Almost (Sweet Music)," he offers shout-outs to Duke Ellington and Chet Baker, though the hand-clap driven jangle seems to owe more to George Ezra than those jazz greats. Even when Hozier looks to be light-hearted, the production still seems geared to huge arenas, offering one anthem after another, whether it's the frantic, intense "Dinners & Diatribes" or the laid-back, groove-driven "To Noise Making (Sing)," where he declares, "You don't have to sing it nice, but honey sing it strong."
Maybe that's what makes the title track of "Wasteland, Baby!" such a delightful change of pace, as Hozier delivers a love song at the end of the world in a swirl of acoustic guitars. It's a welcome bit of sweetness in a sea of seriousness.
Weezer
"Weezer/The Black Album"
BOTTOM LINE: The "Pork and Beans" rockers experiment, but with mixed results.
The reason why the now-beloved "Saturday Night Live" skit where old-school Weezer purist Leslie Jones and recent Weezer defender Matt Damon have a knockdown, drag-out fight works is because it rings so true.
Sure, that kind of intense fandom debate could work for any number of things in pop culture. But it works exceedingly well for Weezer, exactly because of their albums like their latest "Weezer" (Crush/Atlantic) album, dubbed "The Black Album" because of its cover photo.
"The Black Album" is sure to spawn countless debates on its own because Weezer tries numerous styles without always succeeding. The opener "Can't Knock the Hustle" (not a remake of the Jay-Z song though singer Rivers Cuomo should probably put that on his spreadsheet of potential covers) finds Weezer putting its own twist on a hip-hop groove by injecting it with Latin samples, Spanish phrases and Cuomo's near-rapping. The closer "California Snow" has Cuomo offering Kanye-like rhymes on the verses over Yeezus-like synthesizer riffs to show how effective hip-hop Weezer can really be.
For years now, it's been hard to tell how seriously we should take Weezer's lyrics and how truthful Cuomo is being when he sings them. So, on "I'm Just Being Honest," when he takes the most straightforward rock arrangement and uses it to wonder about why he gave his opinion on a fan's band's music, is Weezer just trolling us as fans? The song "Too Many Thoughts in My Head," which finds Cuomo "overwhelmed by Netflix options," seems like it may also be referring to all the eclectic influences on "The Black Album," from the Beach Boys-ish "High as a Kite" and "Piece of Cake" to the Brazilian-tinged "Byzantine" and the ill-advised reggae-lite of "Zombie Bastards."
"The Black Album" shows that Weezer is happy to experiment, but it may be even happier to fuel the "SNL" debate.
