Weezer is carrying on its run of seasonal EPs with the release of SZNZ: Autumn. The project marks the third EP in the series, succeeding Spring and Summer. Each EP is intended to reflect a different era in the band’s metamorphic 30-year history.
While Autumn is technically billed as an EP, the record runs the length of a fully-fledged album. Across a little over an hour, the project spans 21 songs divided into three separate seven-track discs.
March’s Spring showcased the “easy-breezy” element of Weezer, while June’s Summer took on more of a “’90s alt-rock” sound, frontman Rivers Cuomo revealed in an interview with The New York Times.
“Autumn is dance rock, which is not something we’ve traditionally been able to get away with,” Cuomo said, “It’s really hard to make it both dance and rock and Weezer. It’s very easy for that to turn into something that nobody likes.”
In April, Cuomo gave fans a closer look at how SZNZ EPs come together, sharing a Google Spreadsheet he uses to plan each record. Inspirations for the EPs are divided into categories such as “spiritual flavor,” “aural candy,” “color” and “font.”
This is the spreadsheet I’ve been using to plot out SZNZ: https://t.co/AODHoQjxBq
— Rivers Cuomo (@RiversCuomo) April 12, 2022
In making Autumn, Weezer took note from The Strokes and Scottish rock band Franz Ferdinand’s 2004 single “Take Me Out.” The project is also described as reflecting the feeling of anxiety and takes on an “aural candy” of “synth, loops, chops [and] samples.”
The progress portion of the spreadsheet indicates that the band has already begun writing demos for Winter. Following the pattern of previous SZNZ releases, the fourth and final installment in the series will arrive in conjunction with the Winter Solstice on December 21.
Weezer’s new EP SZNZ: Autumn is out for streaming everywhere now.
In other music news, Offset has announced his sophomore album release date.
Tagged: entertainment blog, music, music blog