Album Review: Jimmy Eat World - Damage

For Jimmy Eat World fans around the world getting a new JEW album is like slipping on your favourite woollen cardigan for the first time each winter. It's cosy, soft, smells/sounds like home and fits like a glove. Damage has no surprises but few people will be picking up Jimmy Eat World's seventh album to hear a major genre change. People want shining, effervescent guitars that build and build in intensity until it feels like your heart is going to burst, and earnest, heartfelt examinations of relationships and growing up.

And Damage delivers in spades. This is an album to keep the fanbase very happy and to easily slot straight into the band's live set. First single, I Will Steal You Back, points to the direction of the album and all the JEW trademarks are there.

Of course, within the album there is variation; How'd You Have Me is the visceral rock blast, Byebyelove the tender ballad with the big chorus and Please Say No is the slow burner with layered vocal harmonies in the background - a song that is Jimmy Eat World at their prettiest.

While an album like Damages is fairly easy to predict, Jimmy Eat World have outlasted just about all of their peers because they're very good at what they do and they know what their fans want. Though they're unlikely to bother the charts too much here it's a guarantee tickets to their next Australian tour will be snapped up and the fans will be able to sing along to all the new songs.