Chase This Light

Jimmy Eat World: leaders of emo

Today's rock scene suffers from a completely weird disease: any band, which formerly had any stylistic connections with emo, even the most harmless, tries to get rid of this tag by any means. There exist lots of ways to renounce from the past: from simple public claims to deliberate stylistic alterations but not every band is lucky to cope with the task. Thus, for instance, American band Jimmy Eat World by all appearances is doomed to live with this tag till the end of their days. A reason of this "misfortune" is quite obvious – they've been leading emo movement for far too long to part their ways with it that easily. The band's history reveals a great deal of interesting facts that are deeply intertwined with the history of the genre. For example, Jimmy Eat World was the first and nearly the only emo band that was signed to major during nineties. Besides, Jimmy Eat Worlds provoked the dawning of a so-called third wave of emo, which actually lasts till the present moment. A more melodic and mainstream oriented music that was represented on their album of 2001 Bleed American became some sort of a breeding ground for a new surge of public's interest and eventually rendered great assistance to the genre by inspiring hundreds of young bands.

Good acoustic sound and beautiful vocal melodies

However, Jimmy Eat World don't really want to pay any attention to their former feats and continue departing from emo standards. Their new album Chase This Light is the smoothest and the friendliest album they ever did before. And actually this is what one would expect from them. The musicians are lightening their sounding since 2001 with every new record so Chase This Light blends with the band's discography quite naturally. Their style has hardly changed; the difference between this album and the previous one is that the new material looks even more mainstream oriented. The album opens with a pretty pushing song Big Casino, which is a reminiscent of Bleed America's atmosphere. Honestly speaking, this track falls out of the general context a little and it can be hardly called the album's most demonstrative song, but still, it sounds pretty convincing as such. If you'd like to understand what Jimmy Eat World are striving for today than it will be much better to pay some attention to the second composition Let It Happen. Good acoustic sound, fast tempo, explosive chorus and lots of beautiful vocal melodies – this is the band's main formula. Such a scheme appears quite often on this record.

An album for a good mood

The songs that could be called heavy are few in number – two or three at the most. But they all sound fairly interesting. Listen to Carry You or Feeling Lucky – these are great numbers indeed. Stylistically, they remind pop punk but still they sound different. The album's most unusual tracks are Carry You and Gotta Be Somebody Blues. The former represents a soft acoustic pop rock, the latter consists of dark guitar riff and monotonous beat decorated with mysteriously depressive vocals. The album as a whole sounds sufficiently attractive. Everything is simple, accessible and beautiful. Chase This Light is definitely an album for a good mood, it creates extremely friendly atmosphere and simply makes you feel great. However, the album has its disadvantages too. The main point is that the material sounds a little bit empty; it definitely lacks that thing, which is usually called artistic massage. The external side of Chase This Light is made on the highest professional level but its inner constituent remains unfinished. It spoils overall impression a little but on the other hand it is not that evident and it may take some time to figure it out. Anyway, Jimmy Eat World's old fans have noting to worry about, this album was made for them and it will leave them extremely satisfied.