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Largely credited with being the band who invented emo, there should by rights be a sharpening of knives afoot for this, Jimmy Eat World's fourth album. After all, at least over here the genre died on its arse a good year ago and the casualties are slowly limping away from the wreckage.
But, as it happens, Jimmy Eat World have avoided the cull with a reasonable album here. This probably shouldn't be as much of a surprise as it is - anyone who listened to their last album and the "Salt Sweat Sugar" single will know already that they were always streets ahead of losers like Rival Schools. On "Futures", the subject matter's pretty much as it always was - simple tales of growing up in working class America with the twin highpoints being the two extremes of the album - the desolate "Drugs Or Me" (a tale of seeing a friend slip into being a junkie) and the soaring title track with a (gasp!) optimistic punch your fist in the air chorus propelling it along. It's quite feasibly the best song JEW have ever done.
Every scene will always produce a few survivors who are in the game for the long term. In the case of emo, let's hope Jimmy Eat World are one of 'em.
Rating: 7/10
Reviewed by Andy James
