Jimmy Eat World

There was a time—call it emo's final days in the so-uncool-it's-cool sub-mainstream—when Jimmy Eat World achieved something close to greatness. From Clarity's sprawling, murky anthems to Bleed American's concise, gleaming pop, no band in their genre struck a better balance between teenage-diary lyrics and razor-edged pop songwriting. And then the inevitable took hold: Bleed American spawned a series of ubiquitous singles, emo hit the big time, and Jimmy Eat World found themselves cast as the heart on the nation's sleeve. 2004's follow-up, Futures, was darker and more arena-ready, replacing Bleed American's sugar rush with an unfortunate self-seriousness. The band's new record, Chase This Light—produced by that master of heavy-handed precision, Butch Vig—splits the difference between Clarity's melodrama and American's giddy pop.

There are certain strains of mainstream rock production that simply deaden a band's impact. Vig is notorious for this sort of hyper-gloss (Kurt Cobain notoriously balked at Vig's work on Nevermind), and though it seems he's trying to recreate the band's older haze, his multimillion-dollar studio approximation of Clarity's lo-fi charm misses by a longshot. Punchy barnburners like "Electable (Give It Up)" contain some of Jim Adkins' most convincing "oh-oh-oh" chirrups in a while, and single/album-opener "Big Casino" buzzes with the single-tear urgency the band does best, but an eerily flawless attack and glossy, distant production diffuses the songs' immediacy.

Not all of the "something's off" moments come from Vig's edge-smoothing. There are some odd instances throughout the album in which Adkins lapses into an affected, cool-guy-singing-in-a-rock-band sneer that seems at odds with his usually earnest yelp, and there are some moments when the lyrics skirt waxing-poetic territory ("I have a ringing in my head / and no one is around to answer it"). But apart from nitpicks, there's a sense throughout Chase This Light that Jimmy Eat World are hoping to be heard through the din of an increasingly overcrowded scene, and finding themselves a little tired of the struggle.

—Todd Goldstein
10.18.07

Jimmy Eat World were sitting on top of the emo pop world before the release of their last album, Futures. Its dark, inward-looking, and more mature-sounding songs didn't wreck their career, but the record didn't exactly further it. With Chase This Light, the band returns to the straightforward, hooky, and radio-friendly sound of Bleed American and lightens up some in the lyric department in hopes of recapturing its position in the marketplace. They aren't exactly singing about sunshine and lollipops, mostly love problems and the ills of society, but the cloud of gloom that settled over Futures has lifted. The band is back to following the rough template of Bleed American and the albums that came before it, with a mix of rousing anthems like "Big Casino," "Electable (Give It Up)," and "Feeling Lucky," melancholy rockers with singalong choruses like "Always Be" and "Chase This Light," and sweet ballads like "Carry You" and "Dizzy" (which strangely sounds like an outtake from Def Leppard's Hysteria). Only the moody and dark (with strings) "Gotta Be Somebody's Blues" hints at the mature sound of the last album. Try as they might, Chase This Light isn't as good as Bleed American, Still, it's a pleasant listen and Jim Adkins has a solid knack for writing hooky modern pop songs. ~ Tim Sendra, All Music Guide