Music Review: Jimmy Eat World - Chase This Light

It's strange what age and hindsight can do to your seemingly well established musical tastes. As a teenager, my CD player was inundated with the usual commercial pop punk and emo. You know, bands like Green Day and Blink-182 were somehow revolutionary.

Now I hear these bands on the radio and cringe, because they are too old to be singing about American Idiots and being jilted at the prom. And for the most part, their fans have moved on, spending more time on office politics than gluing anarchy patches on black hoodies.

That's why I approached Jimmy Eat World's sixth studio album, Chase This Light, with a bit of caution. After all, Jimmy Eat World's style has remained slightly more mature than their counterparts, and they have developed a fairly diverse style of music over the years. But since their first hit album, 2001's self-titled Jimmy Eat World (or, for us who prefer the pre-9/11 title, Bleed American), their music just hasn't had the same punch it used to. 2004's Futures was a complete dud, and it didn't quite get the airplay or buzz that its predecessor had.

Chase This Light continues Jimmy Eat World's downward spiral towards clichéd emo-punk riffs and weak lyrics. Although its not the ultimate throwaway of the year, it sure comes close.

The album starts off with "Big Casino," a song that, on the surface, is loud, fun, and full of life. But a closer listen reveals the shell of a once great rock band that is propped up by studio gloss (Butch Vig style, nonetheless). There's something incredibly predictable about "Big Casino," and it starts Chase This Light off with the same bravado and bloat we've heard from this band before.

However, Chase This Light continues with the album's best song, "Let it Happen." In fact, the album is not all bad once it gets going. Songs like "Electable (Give It Up)" and "Here It Goes" show the band developing some originality in their song writing, with more thought provoking lyrics as well. On "Electable (Give It Up)," Jim Adkins taps into the heart of our current U.S. political system: "Talking points with talking heads, and automated smiles / There's no higher ground to stand than bottom of the pile." Lyrics like these are thought provoking enough, but the album as a whole still lacks the musical originality I'd expect from a band at this place in their career.

At the same time, songs such as "Always Be" and "Dizzy" are flat and just plain boring. In "Always Be," the song starts out like a half-baked cover of Postal Service's "Such Great Heights." And Adkins taps into the ADD emo boy stereotypes for his lyrics in "Always Be," singing: "I was just a boy like every other / I thought I was something fierce / I thought I was ten times smarter," et cetera. In "Dizzy," the lyrics are a bit more positive, but with the same clichés: "time never had a chance to heal your heart / just a number counting down to a new start… the world will spend around you, are you dizzy yet?" It seems the band should be singing about something other than lost high school romances, or maybe I'm just missing something here?

Overall, Chase This Light is not Jimmy Eat World's best effort, but it's still better than many of the other emo acts out there right now. Being that Jimmy Eat World has been around for a while now, they are judged by a higher standard. As a result, this album just doesn't compare to their older stuff like Clarity and Static Prevails, nor does it have the radio staying power of Bleed American. Chase This Light may be a great album for new fans, but for those more familiar with Jimmy Eat World's signature sound, you might as well not bother.