Kevin Bronson on July 21st, 2014

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“I didn’t realize I needed you so much,” Rivers Cuomo sings in the new Weezer single, “Back to the Shack,” almost apologizing to fans for sounding like Weezer in an era when sounding like Weezer might get you three minutes on the Flashback Noon Hour show. It’s the first taste of the quartet’s new album “Everything Will Be Alright In The End” (due Sept. 30), its first release in four years. With producer Ric Ocasek (the Cars) back at the helm, Weezer ostensibly returns to its “Blue Album” days – “rocking out like it’s ’94,” Cuomo says in the single, with bandmates Brian Bell, Scott Shriner and Patrick Wilson conspiring to make the crunch that made the band FM favorites. All well and good, but there’s a fine line here between offering a rallying cry for getting back to basics and simply crying “Get off my lawn!” Maybe it’s just having heard so much falsetto ’n’ synth, but we’ll take it. “Let’s turn up the radio / Turn off those stupid singing shows,” pleads Cuomo, maybe too busy having “settled down with my girl” to know that it’s often six of one, half dozen of another.

||| Stream: “Back to the Shack” after the jump

||| Live: Weezer plays Aug. 31 at the Made in America Festival in downtown L.A.

Photo by Emily Shur