Jimmy Eat World - Futures

Okay, I’ll admit it: Jimmy Eat World sometimes doesn’t know where their loyalties lie sonically. They’re kind of all over the place, especially on their first album, Static Prevails. They let their emotion get the best of them, and that tendency makes for albeit a powerful record, but an uneven one as well. Clarity was a little more even-handed than the emotional vomit of Static Prevails, but only scarcely so. Fortunately, the songs on that record were stupendous enough for you to overlook the sometimes dark and frayed ends. Even 2001’s Bleed American was too much the other way, less emotion, more rock and roll. To temper that, though, the songs were even MORE stupendous, with “The Middle” being adopted by every radio station from L.A. to the Gabon jungle, and you could hear it every thirty seconds if you just turned on your set. With Futures, Jimmy Eat World finally seems to have found a happy medium. And thank God, because for most of us, our anguished, angst-ridden teenage years are behind us.
From note one of the title track which leads off the album, it’s apparent that Jimmy Eat World has learned their lessons well from Bleed American, and they’re also remembering that vicious rock n’ roll and sweet dream pop are not mutually exclusive, and can even be combined in the same song. That formula holds true for the first half, culminating in “Pain,” the first single and also the album’s most frantic and frenzied song. The third track, “Work,” sounds like it was originally just as frenzied, but was slowed down to reduce the album’s pulse-ox rate. But after “Pain,” the volume knob takes a nose-dive with the gorgeous downers “Drugs or Me” and “Polaris.” Then it’s finally capped off with the best song Jimmy Eat World has ever put out, “23.” Its epic length and tug-at-heartstrings chorus combine for an effect that could put a crack in the heart of Iron Man. Seriously, this song is so beautiful it makes Ave Maria look like it was played on a didgeridoo. It’s long not because it’s epic or bombastic, but because it’s really drawn out, eventually coming to a climax of gentle gorgeousness.
Jimmy Eat World has done a grand thing here, continuing to make honest, true-to-themselves music while still having virtually no image to present. This is a jeans and t-shirt band that writes huge, anthemic songs, but you wouldn’t know them if you passed them on the street. You’re forced to strip away all that glitter and flash with Jimmy Eat World, and that leaves you with only the music. It shouldn’t be any other way, because the music is something to cherish, to believe in, but most of all to be proud of.

Prime Cuts:
23
Work
Polaris
The World You Love

22 Scale: 21