Jimmy Eat World Album: “Clarity”

Every once in a while, you come across an album that not only impresses you, but just really makes you feel grateful to be alive. Something that just makes the world that much better of a place, knowing that something like this exists. For me, "Clarity" is one of these albums. I enjoy every incarnation of Jimmy Eat World, from the raw, indie punk of the early days, to the more radio-friendly sound they've adopted more recently, but this album is where everything just really came together. "Clarity" is huge, daring, multi-layered, unpredictable, and just mesmerizingly beautiful.

Here, the band really pull out all the stops. As compared their later work, there are far few catchy hooks, instead opting for massive soundscapes, and sweeping melodies. However, that's not to say that there's no hook power to be found here, as the elegant power ballad "Lucky Denver Mint" (which was sort of a minor hit) boasts a strong, driving melody, and one of the band's best choruses. "Your New Aesthetic", the band's rousing protest against commercialism in music, toggles wildly between power pop hooks and crashing Fugazi-like riffs. "Blister" and "Crush" are fast, hard, punk rock anthems, adding a nice sense of variety to an otherwise melodic album.

But the real brilliance here lies foremost in the epic, sweeping ballads. "Table for Glasses" opens the album, with its achingly beautiful buildup, and jaw-dropping vocal harmonies. "Ten", "Just Watch the Fireworks", and "For Me This Is Heaven" (which are all in a row) are just about the most beautiful and heart-wrenching ballads you can hope to hear, and all three of them put together are nearly overwhelming. It really is just beyond words.

Elsewhere, there's plenty of other goodness as well. "Believe in What You Want" combines lurching, offbeat rhythms with a sweeping melodic chorus. "12-23-95" is an odd, electronic-tinged track, with sparse vocals, and a tastefully done minimalist arrangement, and the title track is fluffy and multi-layered.

Now, having gotten 12 tracks into this album, you may think, at this point, that it can't possibly get any better. But guess what? IT DOES! The closing track, "Goodbye Sky Harbor", is a massive, 16+ minute epic of pure freaking divinity. It starts off seemingly conventional, your typical indie rock type song, but soon, it moves into a gargantuan instrumental section that's nothing short of magical. Centered around a simple but entrancing guitar melody, the song slowly and gradually builds an incredible atmosphere. About halfway through, the band members start doing these amazing wordless vocal harmonies, slowly layering them more and more, finally leading into a cool electronic drum bit, and culminating in a dynamite ending. While not everyone might have the attention span for something like this (if you've only heard the newer stuff, you probably can't even imagine them doing such a song), I can't get enough of it. The most experimental, and amazing thing these guys have ever done.

You know, I sort of hate writing more detailed reviews for albums I like this much, because I know that whatever crap I rattle off won't even come close to doing the experience justice. If you really love beauty in music, you really need to hear this. In the final moments before my death, I want this to be the last album I ever hear, because the way this album makes me feel is exactly how I want to feel when I leave this world. Jimmy Eat World have that rare quality of being both poignant and uplifting at the same time, like a happy memory of a time in your life you wish would never end. I don't know how they did this, but I'm forever grateful that they did.

Highly recommended.

Clarity is possibly the greatest album of the decade. Extra tracks means Extra amazement. Jimmy eat world mixes clean meaningful vocals with powerful rock chords. A perfect blend of indie emo rock with pop appeal

Brilliantly written and flawlessly recorded, this expansive masterpiece is the personal favourite in my collection. Though the Arizona veterans continue a banner career a full seven years after its 1999 release, Clarity is almost unanimously considered their finest work to date. Their third full-length release (following 1994's elusive self-titled L.P. and 1996's Static Prevails), Clarity excels its predecessors by leaps and bounds: dropping the grittier but ultimately more pedestrian stylings of Static Prevails for richer harmonies, greater melodic poignancy and significantly more complex instrumentation, Clarity quickly proves itself both a career milestone and an indie-rock monolith.

Undergoing the most prominent metamorphosis is frontman Jim Adkins, who has no difficulty shedding his previously coarse (and frequently off-key) fare for strict melody. Fans of more recent works Bleed American (2001) and Futures (2004) would do well to look into Clarity as a somewhat transitional record for Adkins into this more polished vocal approach, which is favoured exclusively and to great effect in both subsequent releases. Equally adept at penning honesty as he is at delivering it, Adkins has always exuded a sort of effortlessness in his work, and is in top form here: he exposes sensitivity without submitting to artless cliché; he expresses sorrow without becoming overtly piteous; he embraces minimalist simplicity without forfeiting effect. In short, with Clarity, Adkins writes a record that succeeds where the vast majority of emo contemporaries have failed.

Though, to be fair, Clarity does contain some bouncier, high-energy numbers ("Crush," for example, is similar musically to Static Prevails' "Call It In The Air" or Bleed American's "A Praise Chorus"), its highest points are of slower, broodier design. "Just Watch The Fireworks" is an auditory journey of sorts, initially enveloping the listener with soft picking and wispy violin, and eventually building to a staggering orchestral crescendo within its seven-minute bulk; "Goodbye Sky Harbor" clocks in at over 16 minutes as one of the most memorable and instrumentally intricate album finales that I have hitherto experienced; and the awe-inspiring "For Me This Is Heaven," in all its fragility and lyrical majesty, remains unmatched by anything else within the band's catalogue.

I am fully confident, at the risk of appearing somewhat cynical, in my affirmation that Jimmy Eat World will never succeed in surpassing Clarity's brilliance with any future efforts, however genuine. This certainly is not to say that the band as an artistic entity has stagnated or fallen into particular decline by any stretch - indeed, I find both Bleed American and Futures to be impressive in their own right, and thoroughly enjoyable. However, experience dictates that an achievement of Clarity's magnitude rarely occurs twice within the longevity of an entire genre, much less a single career. A timeless album, to be sure.

There will never be another quite like it. A paramount necessity to your record collection.

I won't lie and say I've been a Jimmy fan from the beginning, but after hearing so many good things about them over the years, I decided to try their self titled (Bleed American). I don't think it left my cd player in my car for about 6 months, and all my friends will attest that they started to get a little tired of it. From my experience, whenever a (good)band breaks it big with an album, their previous album usually [is good]. And this album without a doubt [is good]. There are honestly no weak tracks anywhere to be seen, and at least eight songs that would be just as big hits as the stuff they play on radio now.

I could list every great song on this cd, but...well, i'm going to, just to give an idea of how ... good it is. Lucky Denver Mint, Your New Aesthetic, Believe in What You Want, A Sunday, Crush, For Me This is Heaven, Blister, Clarity, and even the 16 minute long Goodbye Sky Harbor. And unlike many bands, the songs are switched up nicely, going from straight out catchy rock songs, to soft melodies, to hard(well kinda) and back again.

Seriously, I can't imagine how anyone could not love this cd, unless you have absolutely no soul in your body.

"Emo-core" is certainly one of the more nebulous musical "genres" (if one can even consider it that) to emerge in the past decade or two. This situation is not at all helped by the fact that most "emo-core" bands actually resent the term that the hipster powers that be have bestowed upon them. Well, like it or not, Jimmy Eat World is such a band: often cited alongside other emo bands, but always begrudgingly so.

This all has little to do with how enjoyable their music is, but if there is one thing that most emo-core bands share, it is a desparate sincerity imbedded within every note. This is even more rare when the band in question has actually spent time with a major label. But, that's the best description (and, in my humble opinion, compliment) that I can give to "Clarity" and Jimmy Eat World in general. Despite the epic anguish of some of the tracks and the tooth decaying sweetness of some of J.E.W.'s lovelorn melodies, not a single moment seems feigned. As the 15 minute plus Goodbye Sky Harbor rambles on, you'll understand it, too. At times, Jimmy Eat World's sound might be a little over-wrought. But, it is always completely sincere. They caught a particular moment and a particular feeling with "Clairty". If you're lucky, they'll catch you, too. Believe it or not, that can make all the difference in the world.