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Your Gateway to Music and More from a Christian Perspective Slow down as you approach the gate, and have your change ready.... |
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Your Gateway to Music and More from a Christian Perspective Slow down as you approach the gate, and have your change ready.... |
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Bleed American Artist: Jimmy Eat World Label: Dreamworks Records Length: 11 tracks Emo scenesters hate Jimmy Eat World almost as much as they do The Juliana Theory (if that’s possible), and, looking from their perspective, it’s not that difficult to see why. JEW have precious little in common with the razorblade guitars and broken vocals of Fugazi or Rites of Spring. My advice to the scenesters who want to like the band but can’t is to drop the "emo" from their "emo-pop" tag and view them as what they’ve really been since their first record: a pop band. Sure, lead singer Jim Adkins’ voice is whiny sometimes. And sure, Bleed American, like all of JEW’s records, contains its share of emo-pop clichés--"If you care at all, please don’t go now / If you love me at all, please don’t tell me now," "Hey, don’t write yourself off yet"—but that doesn’t matter. These things melt away when one realizes that Jimmy Eat World has written great pop songs for this record, melodies that pop up in your head while you’re trying to sleep. There’s nothing here with the pure pop sheen of "Lucky Denver Mint" or "Blister" from the band’s masterpiece-thus-far, 1999’s Clarity, but the title track’s driving urgency and the emotional impact of "Hear You Me" bring out their respective melodies, and "Sweetness" can go head-to-head with any Britney Spears or *Nsync track in terms of throwaway catchiness. Musically, Bleed American is a bit of a departure from Clarity. Whereas Clarity was slow-moving and sedate, Bleed American is faster and more aggressive. Guitars are much more dominant here, and they’re more distorted and jagged than on the last record. The pianos, bells and chimes that permeated Clarity are here relegated to only the background of a few tracks. What this means in a practical sense is that Jimmy Eat World stand out less from the rest of modern rock—they’re starting to sound similar to other alternapop bands on the radio. No, there’s nothing groundbreaking here. Bleed American isn’t going to save or destroy rock and roll. But it’s something pleasant to listen to until someone comes along who will. Michial Farmer (8/6/01)
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