They may have dropped off the rock radar for the better part of five years, but Weezer haven't forgotten the merit of getting to the point. Quick.

Clocking in at just 28 fun-filled minutes, Weezer hardly sounds like the product of a time spent in self-imposed exile. It also isn't the newfangled musical revelation some fans might have been expecting after such a lengthy disappearance. Hell, they didn't even bother sweating over a fancy title. They're better off for it, too.

Weezer haven't just retained what made their first album, also called Weezer, such a gust of fresh commercial air when it topped charts in 1994/95, they've actually refined it.

Back with producer Ric Ocasek, the band keep the guitars huge and the choruses catchy. Frontman Rivers Cuomo walks a tightrope between the cool and the spastic on the twitchy lead single Hash Pipe. The band ignore their distortion pedals for the first half of the strummy Island In The Sun, which sounds oddly like it could be an old Crowded House number, only to re-discover them in time for the all-important chorus crescendo. It's a tested formula -- thank the Pixies -- that Weezer apply with just the right touch, and Don't Let Go, Photograph, and Knock-down Drag-out deal as much in hand-claps and "oo-ah" harmonies as they do in processed noise.

Fans' concerns about the album's brevity are justified when you consider that it isn't much longer than many EPs, but there's nothing missing here. Weezer are still nerve-wracked, tuneful, and wordy -- they just get it all said in a little over three minute a pop, at the most.

More bands should follow their lead. With obvious exceptions, of course... (More on: Weezer).

Track Listing 1. Don't Let Go
2. Photograph
3. Hash Pipe
4. Island In The Sun
5. Crab
6. Knock Down Drag Out
7. Smile
8. Simple Pages
9. Glorious Day
10. O Girlfriend