Jimmy Eat World

Jimmy Eat World return today with Chase This Light, their Butch Vig-produced follow-up to 2004’s Futures.

Best known for their breakthrough record, Bleed American (the title was later dropped after 9-11) and its single, “The Middle,” Jimmy Eat World were always a band who danced at the crossroads of cool and not: their polished pop-rock always fell into the indie-emo bin, but felt slightly out of place on split seven inches. Sure they were produced by a guy from Drive Like Jehu, but their second album, Clarity, was hardly hardcore or punk.

So enter Jimmy Eat World again, now in a post-Fall Out Boy world, with a new album in tow produced by none other than the guy that had Nirvana crawling up Michael Jackson’s ass on Billboard. It was always a mystery why Capitol Records never got fully behind Clarity (which remains the band’s finest recorded moment), and how Jimmy Eat World didn’t become immensely popular in 1999. (Perhaps emo wouldn’t have died such a horribly grotesque death.)

It was less of a mystery, however, why Jimmy Eat World’s fifteen minutes would follow the release of a lesser, more radio friendly album, ready to usher in the new age of auto-tuned eyeliner emo. Chase This Light essentially raises high the white flag on this genre. From a band that once split vinyl with Mineral and Christie Front Drive, comes the shimmering radio perfection of the first four songs on this record.

“Big Casino” is catchy. You will hear it on the popular teen podcasts. It will soundtrack beautiful Hills montages. The cord is cut. Hooray for Jimmy Eat World. Three years after the painful monosyllabic poo of Futures, comes an unabashedly enthusiastic radio-rock pop song that, after abandoning all prior notions of indie cred, leaves you singing, “I’m a New Jersey success story.”

Admit it. It’s a better comeback than Britney’s.

“Rockstar” from Static Prevails (1996)

Listen: “Big Casino” from Chase This Light , available from Interscope Records. Hosted by Can You See the Sunset From the Southside?

http://www.jimmyeatworld.com/