For the past fourteen years, Mesa, Arizona natives Jimmy Eat World have made a career out of their own angst-ridden youth.
Such over-the-shoulder excursions into the past helped earn the band both critical praise (1999’s sophomore effort Clarity) and platinum-status radio play (2001’s self-titled breakout record), but the four childhood friends have since had some difficulty maintaining the pleasurable spark of their backward nostalgia.
Jimmy Eat World’s latest album, Chase This Light, often encounters trouble when the band pulls out its own roots, forgetting some of the edgier musical elements it used to regularly employ.
Crisply polished by producer Butch Vig (Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins), none of the record’s songs have any difficulty rocketing from the take-off deck. Frontman Jim Adkins — as always — sounds at home bellowing out harmonies of his bittersweet free verse.
The mediocre moments come when Jimmy Eat World take themselves out of their comfort zone. “Gotta Be Somebody’s Blues,” for example, doesn’t peak after its spacious brooding and shadowy string arrangement. “Here It Goes” comes off like a cheesy dance mix a la the “Electric Slide” (“Waiting for attention? I’m not / Cut it to the left and I rock / Need an invitation? I don’t / Slide it to the right ‘cause I roll”).
Yet for all its unevenness, Chase This Light does have its share of notable winners. One of the best tracks is the appropriately chosen single “Big Casino.” A song whose title is taken from one of Adkins’ side projects, the track opens with a frenetic strumming crunch that gives free rein to a larger stereo boom.
With a shimmering hook sneaking underneath it all, Adkins sings how “There’s lots of smart ideas in books I never read / When the girls come talk to me / I wish to hell I had.” With his hopeful good-things-are-going-to-come attitude, the song succeeds in making any listener feel bigger than he or she really is.
– Mike Hilleary
Jimmy Eat World: www.jimmyeatworld.com
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