ACCORDING to Weezer leader Rivers Cuomo, the band’s fourth album to be titled after, well, the band was heavily influenced by the Beach Boys. Well, no nonsense, Sherlock.

What has become known as the White Album – they must have got that idea from somewhere – has a pervading blissed-out feel, all power chords and impact riffs and teenage blitheness.

The last of these elements is where it hits a bit of a snag, because Weezer are now all in their mid-40s and yet still knocking out tracks called things like Thank God For Girls, Do You Wanna Get High? and L.A. Girlz.

It’s effervescent, its wordplay is often extremely clever – despite Cuomo still being unable to shake his tendency to throw everything in his lyric book at the wall – but it’s also unconvincing, unremarkable and, for a band who usually manage to capture the attention even when they’re getting something very wrong, strangely average.

Its predecessor, Everything Will Be All Right In The End, seemed to have given Weezer a new lease of life after that difficult second decade; Weezer 4.0 has left them stuck at amber once again.