{"id":38182,"date":"2004-12-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-12-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/futures\/"},"modified":"2004-12-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2004-12-01T00:00:00","slug":"futures","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/futures\/","title":{"rendered":"Futures"},"content":{"rendered":"

What’s left to do once you’ve conquered the world?<\/p>\n

It’s a question that has troubled many a band over the years.
\nIt’s all too common to see groups reacting to their big break by
\nspending the next few years either trying too hard to repeat it, or
\ntrying too hard not to. Getting what you’ve been after all those
\nyears — success, acceptance, an audience — can be completely
\nunnerving.<\/p>\n

Three years ago Jimmy Eat World conquered the known rock and
\nroll universe with the smash album
\n
\nBleed American<\/a>
\n<\/i> (retitled
\nJimmy Eat World<\/i> post-9\/11) and its Godzilla-sized hit single
\n“The Middle.” Coming on the heels of a series of setbacks that had
\nseen the band dropped by Capitol Records, only to be re-signed by
\nDreamworks, the success (creative and commercial) of
\nBleed American<\/i> had to be a tremendously satisfying personal
\ntriumph for the band.<\/p>\n

The answer to the obvious question — what now? — is
\nFutures<\/i>. And it’s a very good answer.<\/p>\n

On their three-years-later follow-up, some things have changed
\nfor the boys of Jimmy — Jim Adkins on vocals and guitars, Rick
\nBurch on bass, Zach Lind on drums, and Tom Linton on guitars and
\nvocals — and some have stayed the same. The band remains a
\ntremendously appealing combination of doe-eyed sincerity and heavy,
\nhooky riffs. What they wisely don’t try to do is recreate the epic
\nundercurrents of many of the songs on
\nBleed American<\/i>. No, there isn’t a song as instantly
\nmemorable as “A Praise Chorus” here — but neither is there a song
\nthat strives as hard to
\nbe<\/i> instantly memorable.<\/p>\n

Instead what you get is a solid, impressive,
\nsteadily-grows-on-you set from a band that has experienced success
\nwithout losing the earnestness that has always been at the core of
\nits music. I mean, who else in this uber-cynical age could get away
\nwith opening an album with a declaration like “I always believed in
\nfutures”? The surprisingly political title track also includes
\nlines like “Believe your voice can mean something” in service of a
\nsearching, forward-looking attitude.<\/p>\n

Yes, this band is growing up and the music is growing with them,
\nwith a number of songs here narrating transitions to adulthood,
\nnotably “23” and the luminous, melancholy, altogether wonderful
\n“The World You Love.” The theme doesn’t end there, though; even
\nrelationship songs like “Work” and “Kill” show a recognition of
\nconsequences that is distinctly mature.<\/p>\n

Other highlights include: “Night Drive,” a well-crafted
\nseduction piece full of potent images (“pierce my heart like a
\nwilling arm”); “Pain,” with its dynamic production and hammering
\nchorus of “It takes my pain away \/ It’s a lie \/ A kiss with open
\neyes”; and “Polaris,” a gorgeous track on which Tom Linton arguably
\ndoes a better job of channeling the airy, epic mid-’80s U2 guitar
\nsound than The Edge does on U2’s new disc. (For more of the latter,
\nsee also the solo on “Nothingwrong.”)<\/p>\n

The danger this band flirts with from time to time is that their
\nearnestness will drag them down somewhat obvious lyrical paths, as
\non the rather maudlin “Drugs Or Me.” Thing is, they’re so good at
\nselling this kind of song with a fully committed performance that
\nthey can usually get away with it.<\/p>\n

\nFutures<\/i> is a terrific step forward for one of the best bands
\nof the new century, an album brimming with youthful rock and roll
\nenergy that also manages to be wise beyond its years. It’s an album
\nthat will make you believe, or at least want to. The world could
\nuse more of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":26883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6683],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-38182","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-jimmy-eat-world","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38182"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}