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Jimmy Eat World

Stay On My Side Tonight EP

Written by: PP on 05/10/2005 04:19:28

Wow. Is this really Jimmy Eat World or have I gotten my hands onto another band with the exact same name? Could this really be the same band that struggled in Roskilde Festival's Orange stage this summer, with cheerful pop punk classics like "The Middle", "Work" and "Bleed American"? If so, what is this deeply progressive and gloomy sound impossible to place in any genre, that we are hearing on the 8 minute long opener "Disintegration"?

Brilliance, astonishment and inexpressible magnificence are the first three thoughts to come into my mind, and that's only after the first song. "Over" continues on the exact same traces of slowly built up, progressive emo as the opening track, and "Closer" is just a tad bit similar to the old slow songs, but so different, that it is not possible to recognize it's a Jimmy Eat World EP resonating from your stereos.

"Half Right" is a fantastic cover of the old Heatmiser song, and the "Drugs Or Me" remix is so strange, that it's nearly impossible to recognize it to be the original pop punk emo song from "Futures". Just think of vocals whose every second syllable is skipped, and bring in elements from the electronic music genres and you've got a new "Drugs Or Me". And it's a damn good one, if you ask me.

"Stay On My Side Tonight" EP turns everything we ever thought could be emo 180 degrees around. It brings in a whole new perspective in the exact same way as their debut album contributed to the evolution of pop punk into emo back in 1996. It's hard to understand that Interscope, one of the biggest major labels, would allow the band to release something as experimental as this. This EP, that was announced only two months before it's release, turns out to be THE essential emo record of the year. The fact that this is only a 5 song EP makes my heart cry.

Download: Disintegration
For the fans of: The Juliana Theory, Death Cab For Cutie

Release date 04.10.2005
Interscope Records