Jimmy Eat World
http://www.jimmyeatworld.net

styles: rock, emo rock, alternative rock
others: Get Up Kids, Ultimate Fakebook, Appleseed Cast

Bleed American
Dreamworks, 2001
rating: 7.5
reviewer: mph
 
There’s this band from my hometown called Appease. They’re a half-British/half-South African emo-punk group who have been heralded by the UK punk scene as being everything from “this years best new live band” to being “the UK's answer to New Found Glory”. Before joining the group, their singer/guitarist and bassist (Graeme and Dave respectively) recorded a demo as a duo under the name of Mighty Hermaphrodite. On that demo was a song called “Simple Teenage Love Songs”, an understated little ditty which paid tribute to a band who I had never heard of before, but was intrigued nonetheless: “My days wages I’ve got with me/I’m going to the mall and gonna buy a CD called/Jimmy Eat World, coz it is so emotional/It helps me to reflect the things that make me sad”. Has ever anything more true been said? It continued when I read the ecstatic review of Bleed American in Kerrang! magazine a few weeks ago. I was interested enough to download “A Praise Chorus”. Then I heard the title track on the radio and was blown away. These initial teasers were enough to prompt me to buy the album on Saturday.

The album opens with the title track, a wise move cause “Bleed American” simply RAWKS! It’s very Foo Fighters-ish with blistering guitars and typical “quiet-loud-quiet” dynamics which work very effectively. “A Praise Chorus” is a pulsating, incredibly catchy blast of buzzsaw guitars, thundering drums and pure molten melody. A few listens will have you shouting along with the chorus in no time.

Elsewhere on the LP, the impassioned anthemics of  “Sweetness” and the esoteric strum-along of “Your House” are drenched in romance and very typical of the “emo” genre, but are still striking pieces, and with the more experimental cuts on the album, such as “Cautioners” which slowly unravels its expansive beauty over a pulsing electro-beat, and “Get It Faster” with its eerie, tip-toeing intro that soon explodes into a riff-laden beast, the band truly transcend the “emo” tag they have been pigeon-holed with. There is a distinct and brilliant pop sensibility on display here. As well as the aforementioned “A Praise Chorus”, “The Middle" and “The Authority Song” are concise and very catchy.

Perhaps the best moments on the album, however, are the stripped down ones: the more beautifully simplistic songs, like the closing “late-night vibes” of “My Sundown”, or the achingly gorgeous “Hear You Me”. It just oozes emotion: “If you were with me tonight/I’d sing to you just one more time/A song for a heart so big/God wouldn’t let it live”. You can only swoon.

If there is any justice in the world, Jimmy Eat World are going to become massive. I don’t know what their status is like in the US, but they’re pretty much a cult act over here in the UK. Only a few people know them at the moment, but hopefully this will change. They’ve certainly got the tools to do it, as this wonderful record proves.

1. Bleed American
2. A Praise Chorus
3. The Middle
4. Your House
5. Sweetness
6. Hear You Me
7. If You Don't, Don't 
8. Get It Faster
9. Cautioners
10. The Authority Song
11. My Sundown