for fans of Best Coast. Jimmy Eat World, Superchunk

singles to download ‘Ain’t Got Nobody,’ ‘Lonely Girl,’ ‘II. Anonymous’

You wouldn’t want hundreds of thousands of complete strangers reading your diary. Neither did Rivers Cuomo. Following the surprise success of Weezer’s self-titled debut (also known as “The Blue Album”), Cuomo took all of the pain, confusion and loneliness that came with instant fame and funneled it into “Pinkerton,” the band’s raw, cathartic follow-up. Trading “The Blue Album”’s bubblegum hooks for perforated guitars and battering-ram percussion, “Pinkerton” was the epitome of the “difficult” sophomore album. Predictably, it was a flop, both commercially and critically. But it was more than the backlash that forever changed Cuomo.

See, “Pinkerton” took rock’s tradition of metaphor and abstraction and replaced it with bone-deep honesty. It wasn’t so much a rant as a diary, therapy session and unfiltered id all rolled into one. Even the embarrassing stuff, especially the embarrassing stuff, was placed front and center for the world to see. Following the album’s failure, a small part of Cuomo died in 1996, and he hasn’t been the same since.

That’s not to say Weezer collapsed entirely. The band’s next two albums (“The Green Album” and “Maladroit”) toyed with an irresistible concoction of power-pop and metal, and while the last 10 years have seen Weezer devolve into the embarrassing dad of alternative rock, there have been bright spots here and there. But the Rivers Cuomo who once aired his dirty laundry has receded deep into the horn-rimmed glasses of Rivers Cuomo 2.0, who favors lame gimmickry (Exhibit A: Weezer’s ill-advised collaboration with Kenny G) over the soul-searching of his youth.

That being said, I still believe Cuomo has one more “Pinkerton” in him, and the early hype for the band’s latest album, “Everything Will Be Alright in the End,” indicated it was Weezer’s best since its creative peak. Would this be the late-period masterpiece that’s filled the dreams of Weezer fans for close to two decades?

In short, no. Like much of Weezer’s post-“Maladroit” output, “Everything Will Be Alright” represents a lighter, frothier version of the band. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as Cuomo’s the kind of songwriter who can produce earworms on autopilot. At the least, the entire album is agreeable, if not remarkable, but Cuomo’s lyrics are another matter.

Where he once recounted his sexual frustrations in queasily vivid detail, Cuomo has since regressed into a state of suspended adolescence. Vague generalities rule the day when discussing his romantic longings on opening track “Ain’t Got Nobody,” which finds Cuomo lamenting, “Ain’t got nobody / Ain’t got no one to kiss and hug me.” A real poet, this one.

Perhaps Best Coast’s Bethany Consentino, who trades verses with Cuomo on “Go Away,” would reawaken his heart-on-sleeve courage? Let’s take a look:

Cuomo: “Cold hearted girl / Don’t hurt me like this anymore / I’m waiting right outside your door / Saying baby can we talk?”

Consentino: “Stupid boy / You keep on begging but I won’t let you in / You keep on crying but you know what you did,” and so on and so forth.

So Cuomo seems beyond repair on the romantic front, but there’s promise elsewhere. Though “I’ve Had It Up to Here” largely assigns blame rather than accepting it, Cuomo does begin to engage with Weezer’s decline when he bluntly states, “Don’t want my ideas polluted by mediocrity / Don’t want my sentiments diluted / This is important to me.” Inelegant? Yes, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Sadly, a stark divide between text and music marks “Everything Will Be Alright,” as Cuomo’s weakest lyrics are often paired with his strongest compositions. For all its sins as a one-dimensional portrait of adolescent anguish, “Ain’t Got Nobody”’s riffs have thrust and mass, approaching that metal/pop sweet spot Weezer once perfected. “Lonely Girl” achieves a similar urgency through its Ramones-meets-Beach-Boys melody, despite its tired sentiments.

But it’s the three-song, album-ending suite that finds Weezer reinvigorated. Soaring and shredding with hair-metal abandon, the suite shows a way forward for a band that’s stuck in neutral. Could this be a taste of things to come? Considering Weezer’s narrative has become more compelling than its music, a little ambition would be a welcome change of pace.