Weezer unveil new song The Beginning of the End, featuring a shreddy, tap-tastic solo from Rivers Cuomo

Weezer have unveiled a full-on shredding, two-hand tapping new single, The Beginning of the End, which will appear on the soundtrack to the upcoming third installment in the Bill & Ted movie trilogy, Bill & Ted Face the Music. 

The new electric guitar track is the latest reveal from Weezer’s forthcoming ‘80s metal-influenced album, Van Weezer. The effort was first scheduled for release earlier this year but pushed back, due to the coronavirus, to this summer – and now, apparently, to May 2021 to coincide with the band's rescheduled Hella Mega Tour with Green Day and Fall Out Boy.

Back in September 2019, Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo, who contributes the guitar heroics on the new song, hinted at the direction of Van Weezer.

“Last album we didn't have any guitars, this one is just all guitars. A hundred guitars,” he said.

“This is all from playing shows, and we just noticed over the last few years there'd be these moments during the show where I'd accidentally bust out a few harmonics or a whammy bar dive or a little tapping just because I can't control myself.

“And we noticed like unlike in decades past, now the audience would go ballistic whenever they'd hear even a hint of that style. So I started doing it more and more. And soon I'm just like shredding through the whole show and we're like, ‘Jeez, we should make an album like this.’”

Since then, the band debuted the Van Weezer track Hero, complete with a video in which frontman Rivers Cuomo wielded a none-more-pointy Guild X-88 Flying Star electric guitar while co-guitarist Brian Bell rips some ‘80s-approved triplets on a Les Paul. And they also appeared on an episode of the Simpsons, turning the show’s famous theme song into – what else? – a shredfest.

Bill & Ted Face the Music, meanwhile, is out on September 1. In addition to Weezer, the soundtrack features tracks from Mastodon, Lamb of God and Animals as Leaders. Excellent!