Weezer ★★★ Van Weezer CRUSH MUSIC/ATLANTIC. CD/DL/LP

A pop-metal record dedicated to the late Eddie Van Halen.

“Look like you could have been in Faster Pussycat,” sings Rivers Cuomo on Precious Metal Girl. Like most of Van Weezer’s concise songs it finds Cuomo and his bandmates mourning a denim-and-Spandex-clad adolescence. All The Good Ones [are gone] documents romance at the mini-mart, Joan Jett-style, Blue Dream purloins the riff from Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train, and I Need Some Of That recalls a summer riding pushbikes and listening to Aerosmith. The sentiments charm and Cuomo’s nose for a tune endures, but the drive-time metal supremacy of Def Leppard and Mutt Lange is never under serious threat. To these ears, the standout is still The End Of The Game, a 2019 single paying warm tribute to the EVH playbook. “I know that you will crank this song/Air-guitaring with your headphones on,” opines Cuomo. Rumbled! James McNair