With Rivers Cuomo having declared himself a formalist obsessive-compulsive, the question of whether he’s being sincere has become increasingly difficult to parse. Alone II, the latest nonchronological trawl through King Weezer’s tape vault, suggests that the truth is “sometimes.” Lots of this previously unreleased material rolls off Cuomo’s power-pop assembly line pleasingly enough, but within the anthemic power chords and pomp-metal solos of “I Was Scared” and “The Purification of Water” rests some of our oddball’s most emotionally convincing material in years. Chalk it up to tape hiss.
