This is the first Jimmy Eat World album I've ever heard. Before this I'd only heard The Middle and a couple of other songs I don't remember the name of but I'm sure I didn't like. With the song Futures I don't think that they went off to a good start. I hated the riff and couldn't get into the song at all. Just Tonight... then came on and I found this to be huge improvement, the music was quite good and the vocals didn't seem to grate as they had done before. The song was genuinely quite catchy.
Regrettably this was the last song that I enjoyed on the entire rest of the album. There were two main points that I didn't like and came up a few times on the album. The first is the vocals - the worst of which I found to be on Work. His high pitched whine annoyed me greatly on this song and the 'oh oh, oh oh oh' parts of the chorus made me cringe horribly.
Another part of the album which ruined it for me was the music itself. It's as if Jimmy Eat World want their songs to sound catchy and for everyone to be singing along and loving it, but it's just not doing it for me. The repetition of the last words on some lines in Kill made me hate it with an unbelievable fiery passion: "I can't help it baby, this is who I am (am)
Sorry, but I can't just go turn off how I feel (feel)"
I know it may seem like I am being nit picky but it is small things like this that can ruin a song for me completely. "We're only ever as happy, as everyone else seems to be." It's lyrics like this that just make me want to shout 'Fuck off' to my computer screen. I am sorry Ben if this seems like I'm being too cruel.
The song I liked the least of all was Drugs or Me. I dislike this the most because I can see what they are trying to do, but they just can not do it. This is supposed to be ballad that fans of JEW will call beautiful, it's supposed to be minimal in terms of instrumentation because the lyrics are the most important thing. The lyrics are supposed to reach the heart of the listener as they cry about the hurt the singer's singing about. But what I heard was lack luster singing and vocals that do nothing but make my ears blink* coupled with boring music. This song made me sad, not because of the message in the song but because it bored me.
You're sorry, you swear it: you're done
But I can't tell you from the drugs
Remember kids, don't do drugs.
Overall I will give this album 1.5/5
Sorry.
*Ear blinking is when you close your ears to sound. It doesn't really exist but I wish it did.
Aha. I like this album, but I can see where you're coming from.
ReplyDeleteI didn't think this was a good album either, but I didn't feel passionate enough to write a hate filled review about it. Lol I think the thing that annoyed me most was the attempt at some genres and in particular very specific sounds that I could almost pin down to other bands songs, sadly for JEW, these bands do it much better.
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