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Jimmy Eat World
Futures
2004, Interscope
Out of all the musicians I‘ve known, I consider myself a rarity: a Jimmy Eat World fan who‘s only heard of them since their acclaimed Bleed American/Self-Titled release of 2001. This does perhaps increase my possibility of bias, as I have not been a fan since their humble beginnings of Static Prevails or Clarity, and believe me when I say this: I have heard the virtues of both albums extolled upon both here and afar.
All contentions for their previous work aside, JEW‘s most recent release, Futures, is an interesting mix, both keeping the sound that made them musically accessible to the masses as well as expanding in directions I honestly could not have really predicted.
This album has a few high points for me, coincidentally ‘Pain‘ and ‘Work‘. The former was more of a departure from their successes of Jimmy Eat World, striking me as a song more in the serious style of ‘Bleed American‘ (in fact, there are also references to pills in both) rather than teeny-bopper-ish tunes like ‘The Middle‘. In likewise fashion, ‘Work‘ strays from such lyrical content, succeeding with more mature advice: ‘Work and play/They‘re never okay/To mix the way we do‘.
As I said previously, though, a few songs on this album go in directions that didn‘t seem much like Jimmy Eat World of recent. After first getting this album, my wife listened to ‘Nothingwrong‘ and said, ‘Is this really Jimmy Eat World?‘ I agree that it‘s not typically the sound these Mesa, AZ boys would have ground up, but I can‘t complain; this song is favorably heavy, incorporating more background vocals that are not so much harmonic as they are echoes of the strongly rhythmic lyrics. The structure of the song is absolutely marvelous, with brilliant inner rhyme in the verses and forceful, straightforward content.
In general, this album is choice material that I think fulfilled the expectations of most (and if it didn‘t, your expectations may have been a bit too high). Aside from a few lackluster tracks like ‘Drugs or Me‘ (one has to wonder about someone who seems okay with self-medication but vilifies drugs) and ‘Night Drive‘, this album had some very well rounded songs, both in heavy-hitters and in their classic chock-full-of-emotion tunes like ‘Polaris‘ and ‘23‘.
Looking ahead from here, I would not at all be opposed to hear more of the same from them in the future (absolutely no pun intended).