November 6, 2001

Jimmy Eat World : Jimmy Eat World

A record for bleeding hearts and bleeding knuckles in equal measures...

8 / 10 Breakthrough third LP from Arizona pop-thrashers
For a while, it looked like it just wasn't meant to be for emo-core stalwarts Jimmy Eat World . Having had their first two major label releases ostracised by their ex-record company (1996's 'Static Prevails' and 1999's much-lauded 'Clarity'), publicity for their new LP was put on the back burner temporarily, this time because of its original title, 'Bleed American'.

But the Jimmys' punk-pop-drunk third album isn't the kind of record that deserves to get lost in the shuffle. No, the retitled ' Jimmy Eat World ' is a veritable pop-buzzsaw, rammed to its back teeth with infectious melodies and teen TV sentiment - the kind of record you can easily imagine on heavy radio rotation.

In short, if they weren't such sensitive souls, you'd suspect the Arizona band were targeting a very specific type of market: those who can't bring themselves to like the puerile antics of Blink-182, but find themselves curiously attracted to the pop nous and shiny production at work there. For the sensitive, melodic mosher seeking relationship empathy, Jimmy Eat World could be a godsend.

From the punchy first single, 'Salt Sweat Sugar', to the zesty 'Sweetness', ' Jimmy Eat World ' is brimming with power chords and zeal. "I was spinning free/WOH-OH-OH-OH-HO!" hollers frontman Jim Adkins during the latter, like a man possessed by Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon. And while they've undoubtedly got the riffs to rival the Blink 182s and Sum 41s of this world, JEW do more than just rawkkkk.
The emotionally weathered 'Hear You Me' and the positively Dawson's Creek-ian 'Your House' (sample lyric: "If you still care at all/Don't got tell me now") demonstrate an altogether deeper shade of JEWwhich sometimes, like during the heart-rending 'If You Don't, Don't', proves too much to bear ("We once walked out on the street/And once I almost touched your hand").

It's a record for bleeding hearts and bleeding knuckles in equal measures. We should've seen it coming. After all, what is it they say about the geeks inheriting the Earth?

Imran Ahmed