Although distinctly Jimmy Eat World, the band’s first studio album since 2007, “Invented,” fails to match its previous attempts for the perfect pop-punk sound.
The single from “Invented,” “My Best Theory,” falls flat when compared to Jimmy Eat World’s first singles, “The Middle” and “Sweetness,” from their debut album, “Bleed American,” and “Futures,” from their fifth album of the same name. “My Best Theory” does seem to be the closest thing to the classic-crisp Jimmy-Eat-World sound on the album, though.
“Invented” is full of slower-tempo songs, which tend to bleed together like emo-angst soup. A song that sticks out from the others and from older Jimmy Eat World songs, “Higher Devotion,” has singer, Jim Adkins, sounding eerie and demanding an unidentified “you” to read his mind, while a simple drum beat and guitar riff fight for attention in the background.
Jimmy Eat World stuck out in the alternative-rock scene in the late ‘90s and early 2000s because of its phenomenally catchy lyrics and fast-paced, guitar-driven songs. But “Invented” seems over-produced, a growing trend among contemporary bands. It opts to rely on synth and keyboard sounds rather than the staples of punk: an electric guitar and a cheap distortion pedal.
Song 10 on the album, “Action Needs an Audience,” gives a taste of the powerful potential the band still has to pump things up, but it’s anticlimactic, as it is followed by the album’s title track, which starts as a sad acoustic ballad with a teasing break-down in the middle.
Many bands tend to get softer rather than heavier over time, and Jimmy Eat World is no exception. “Coffee and Cigarettes” might be the “hardest” song on the album, but the tinkling of a xylophone and the oh’s and ah’s of a chorus in the background take away from its near-edginess.
Unless you are a die-hard fan of Jimmy Eat World, I’d avoid purchasing this album if you want to listen to the best they have to offer.
