Wow, I've heard some third-rate Weezer knockoffs in my day, but this Special Goodness band takes the angel food. Seriously, I'd recommend Cuomo Inc. have General Geffen find them a good lawyer immediately, I think there's grounds for a lawsuit here. This shit makes Nerf Herder and Harvey Danger-- monsters of the late-nineties alterna-dial-- seem like veritable founts of originality and pep.

Intern hands Mitchum slip of paper, darts out of office covering head. It reads: "Rob, The Special Goodness is Weezer drummer Patrick Wilson's side project, it was nearly solo-recorded, with some minor assistance from a guy named Atom Willard."

I knew that already, Sarah. Really, I did, I was just...I was trying to make a point, about how little The Special Goodness deviate from Wilson's formulaic day job. Land Air Sea doesn't demonstrate this toothsome twosome are capable of much more than Weezer, either in songwriting variance or musical character. Wilson's vocals impersonate the same schoolboy quiver as Old Man Rivers-- he must do some man-behind-the-curtain understudy work on arena nights when Cuomo only feels like pantomiming. The songs, meanwhile, take the radical measure of mixing the power with the pop, in the tattooed-riff mode of recent =W=ork, rather than the overdriven-sugar of their black-and-blue early days.

Wilson shows he's a firm supporter of Weezer's war against eccentricity by paralleling their descent into guitar-bass-drums hard rock sludge (and needless soloing) on the group's second record; if I didn't know better, I'd think these muddy productions were more future album demos leaked through the pores of Weezer.com. Wilson-- clearly-- is no threat to the alpha male of his other band's song craft, however, as his approach to this arena rock play-acting never lucks into reminders of past brilliance like "Keep Fishin'".

Instead he offers lyrics weaker than the economy, and arrangements straighter than Ted Nugent. Occasional fits of catchiness on "Life Goes By", "Inside Your Heart" and "Pay No Mind" are lost amidst the background buzz, and a song with some promise-- "Day in the Autumn"-- is ruined by obnoxious foibles like Wilson's pronunciation of "autumn" with a "y" at the front. "N.F.A." (sorry Deadheads, not a Buddy Holly cover) is the most glaring example of what passes for ingenuity with the Special Goodness, the chorus setting joyless "ba ba bada"s against a snotty "I'm not fucking around!" mantra, triumphant in the belief that they're the first band to swear in a pop song.

For purposes of contrast, set Land Air Sea up against the side work of Weezer's first defector, Matt Sharp's Rentals, whose debut album was a fetishistic new-wave departure from the core organization, compelling enough to (I think-- Jesus, it's still there?) hold a place on my disc shelf. Wilson can't establish an identity of his own apart from the group he swings sticks for, begging the question of why he even bothers with this, ahem, maladroit effort. Nothing on Land Air Sea indicates that-- if The Special Goodness wasn't the project of a Weezer sideman-- it'd be anything more than sporting goods for the annual Pitchfork Frisbee Golf Masters. I'm gunning for you this year, Tangari!

-Rob Mitchum, April 7th, 2003