Famous as the front-man of geek-rockers Weezer, Rivers Cuomo has been collecting his home demos since the early days of writing the band’s self-titled debut (a.k.a. The Blue Album). Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo collects some of his favourites, from those early efforts through to last year’s ‘This Is The Way’, which his liner notes suggest may make Weezer’s seventh album.

For any fan of the band, this makes it an interesting history, charting their progression from an early version of their breakthrough hit ‘Buddy Holly’ through Rivers’ unfinished rock musical Songs From The Black Hole (parts of which later became Pinkerton, although without the off-cuts here) to a smattering of later stuff, including a soundtrack recording and a couple of covers (Ice Cube ‘The Bomb’ and Dion’s ‘Little Diane’ – which actually reminds me of something by Liverpudlian doom-rockers Anathema!). Unsurprisingly, this makes it something of a hodgepodge, with a range of styles and some songs sounding far more polished than others. Some simple, yet quite poignant, love songs such as ‘This Is The Way’ and ‘I Was Made For You’ nestle side-by-side with rockers like the aforementioned covers and ‘Blast Off!’.

Naturally some parts are more successful than others, but that’s to be expected. Indeed, part of the attraction is that these are genuinely rough home demos, with a raw sound quality unpolished by studio engineers. In this respect, it’s perhaps sad there weren’t early versions of a few more well-known songs for comparison, but then that would mean not being able to treat us to some of the unheard rarities that are present. As it is, the collection has a couple of moments that recommend it as a record in its own right, rather than a mere curiosity, but still it’s most likely to appeal to existing Weezer aficionados rather than winning over a new fan base.
(3½/5)