Jimmy Eat World have been busy. Their new album ‘Integrity Blues’ came out in 2016 and since then, they’ve been hitting the road hard. Today they’re at Slam Dunk to close out the day. It’s 6pm, and there’s a lot of jetlag going on. Rather than looking towards a pause though, it’s full steam ahead.
A week earlier, they surprise released two new songs. Showing off both sides of the band, anthemic and reflective, they’re a friendly reminder that Jimmy Eat World are still a force to be reckoned with.
‘Love Never’ is urgent and swift, a dash of basement grime with plenty of swelling arena comfort, it’s a warning anthem about “the unrealistic expectations you put on relationships to fulfil you on a personal level.”
‘Half Heart’ is quieter, turning that brash encouragement into something vulnerable and uncertain, it shimmers in the moonlight as it looks at “just being present with people. That’s the short version, the CliffsNotes,” grins frontman Jim Adkins.
“We’re always working on new stuff,” he continues, excitement dancing on his tongue, but ‘Love Never’ and ‘Half Heart’ were designed to play off one another.
“We’ve just been working on new stuff. We have our own studio which we just upgraded with some gear, and we just went in and did them.” No expectations, no grand plan. “It’s fun now. There are no rules anymore about what you can do or what’s available to you. We thought of it as a seven-inch, with an A and a B side, although most people will listen to it them in a playlist.
“Obviously, we have more songs than those two,” he teases, “but we felt like those two would be best for the kinda release we wanted to do. They’re drastically different,” and see the band playing with what comes next.
