Review: Jimmy Eat World's Invented

I’ve been waiting for this one.

Invented, the seventh album by the curiously humble Arizonian Jimmy Eat World is adding another chapter onto the band’s almost fifteen year career. It is also something I’ve been looking forward to all year, being a great admirer of their music. Their 1999 work Clarity has been lauded by fans and critics alike as their greatest, and touted by the Alternative Press as one of the top ten albums of the decade. High praise indeed. Still, their self-description has always been simply ‘We are a rock band from Arizona.’

Invented, however, is three albums and eleven years separated and in that time, the styles of a group can drastically change. Have they retained the skills and sensibilities that made them the underground juggernaut of ten years ago?

Our first track, Heart is Hard to Find gets things going with all the familiar set pieces that made Clarity stand out; simplistic, unobtrusive acoustic backing, gentle ‘oooh’s’ in the background, and probably the best use of orchestration on the album that punctuates the song and serves as a reminder of Adkins’s penchant for writing the most obviously simplistic melodies that masterfully augment the song by bringing out unheard qualities of the same three chords in ways you’d kick yourself for not thinking of first.

My Best Theory, Action Needs an Audience, Higher Devotion and Coffee and Cigarettes fight the usual losing battle for distortion and balls-out rockery on this record, not for lack of quality, but because they’re simply overwhelmed by the slow stuff this time around. That being said, the excellent E minor Theory is perhaps the tightest pop song they’ve written yet. And Devotion’s chugging, percussive chorus is a noble attempt, but it’s pretty clear that this isn’t where their passion lies: the slow stuff.

A look at the track listing shows not one but two six and a half plus minute songs and what do you know, both of them are the kind of gentle, lovelorn downers that have unfailingly given the heart and soul to every album of theirs since the titular Clarity. Taking into account the other similar tracks, we arrive at a grand total of almost thirty minutes of such music. Melodic, choral and orchestrated, Littlething, Movielike, Cut, Invented, and Mixtape will satisfy anyone’s need for soaring chords and belted vocals.

It’s very difficult to write about this album, to explain exactly what the magic ingredient is that makes me enjoy it so much. Because it isn’t their strongest, most heartfelt work (Clarity) and it doesn’t hit the sweet spot of emotion and pavement-thumping rock and roll that 2004’s Futures did, the fast and heavy songs feel like unwelcome guests in an album that tries very hard to recreate the feel of Clarity.

Is it fine art? No.

Will it make you think? Probably a little.

Does it sound good? Hell yes.

For the next few days, the whole album will be on the band’s myspace: http://www.myspace.com/jimmyeatworld. Go give it a listen.