Jimmy Eat World is like the high school movie of bands – although all of the members are now in their 30s, they can still get away with acting like teenagers.
While it is almost three years to the day since the band’s last album, Futures, hit record stores everywhere, Jimmy Eat World’s vocals, instrumentals and lyrics haven’t matured in the least. In fact, they may have gotten worse.
There is nothing on Chase This Light, the band’s latest effort, that has the capacity to become a single, let alone a hit. Every song is either a tired get-up-and-clap-your-hands anthem or a too-slow emo snoozer, and most tracks end up sounding exactly the same. Furthermore, the band’s anticipated production twist has done nothing for its sound. Apparently not even the mind behind Nirvana’s Nevermind, Butch Vig, can help these guys sound sincere.
The fast tracks, which take up the better part of the album’s first half, are vocally boring, and in their now-typical fashion the guys join together in some sort of chanting chorus as if to call their teenage army to attention.
Unfortunately, the horrors begin with the first track, “Big Casino.” The song doesn’t fit as the album’s opener; even devoted fans will be bored with this almost-spoken proclamation of success by lead singer Jim Adkins. Adkins declares to fans, “I’m the one who gets away/ I’m a New Jersey success story.” Don’t get ahead of yourself, Jimmy – with an album like this, you might find yourself making a U-turn on the George Washington Bridge.
“Electable” is another perfect example of the rehearsed format – Adkins demonstrates his well-honed mix of whispery and whiny vocals until he instructs everyone to “give it up!” Then he and the rest of the gang go into a sophisticated chorus of “Oh oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh!” Creative. For a song that is assumed to be the band’s attempt at a political statement, it’s not much of a statement at all.
Although drastically different, the album’s next track, “Gotta Be Somebody’s Blues,” is far from refreshing. The song sustains whiny vocals, but in a much slower, drawn-out and painful form. Like all the slow songs on this album, “Gotta Be Somebody’s Blues” achieves nothing but another emo mascara-running sound which is overall useless. Best of all, the nearly five-minute track goes by exceedingly slowly, nonsensical lyrics and all.
In the end, the only thing Chase This Light chases is a pipe dream of past success. The second half of the album takes a turn towards the slower and more serious, but the last three songs don’t begin to compare to the introspective tracks of Futures or overall awesomeness of Bleed American. Instead, they just conclude an album of overall mediocrity.
One would have thought Jimmy Eat World’s age would have brought along a little wisdom, but maturity is sorely lacking. Forget an older audience – this album proves Jimmy Eat World is just trying to stay hip with the younger crowd. After all, the band may be getting older, but angsty teenagers? They stay the same age.
cpomeroy@umd.edu
