BYGONE POP & DIGITAL ARSENAL

Proudly manning the rear guard : ''It's a hip-hop world,''  Rivers Cuomo matter-of-factly laments in-

''Beach Boys,'' the defining song on Weezer's 11th studio album. ''Pacific Daydream'. Ofcourse it's not a hip-hop album.

''Pacific Daydream'' is a collection of pop-rock songs with old-fashioned verse-chorus-bridge structures that Brian Wilson would recognize; wistfully melodic tales of yearning, full of nonsense-syllable hooks, vocal harmonies and chunky guitars.

But the album is also a sly take on what it feels like to be still productive while proudly in the rear guard of the era when rock dominated pop, looked back fondly and analytically to sense psychedelic studio craft and-

Ignoring an era of blunt-spoken-word catchphrases and programmed, stripped down, earbud ready MP3 tracks.

''Pacific Daydream'' lives up to the Californian implications of its title with direct echoes of Beach Boys sounds : not only a lot of the ''gorgeous four-part harmony'' cited in the lyrics of ''Beach Boys''-

But also the bass tone and clip-clop percussion on ''QB Blitz,'' the-

Organ chords of  ''La Mancha'' the modified girl-group beat of ''Sweet Mary'' and the buoyant choruses and counter melodies of songs like ''Weekend Woman.''

But the Beach Boys are by no means Weezer's only source; the album holds allusions to all sorts of  1960s and 1970s memories  [the Zombies, George Harrison, Todd Rundgren] alongside bits of like-

The sped-up vocal samples that Kanye West once favored, writes Jon Pareles.

So ''Pacific''  daydream'' is not exactly a throwback. Unlike last year's ''Weezer [The White album],''  it doesn't cling to the illusion of a feedback-laced live rock-band.

With Butch Walker [Pink, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift] as producer, Weezer has meshed its fondness for bygone pop era with the digital arsenal available now.

That includes samples and loops. suddenly transformed into arrangements and mix of live and probably programmed beats; the tracks make instant transitions between the physical and the virtual.