Review Summary: "There's a cinematic end, I picture it just right / Having trouble with the right words, can you tell me with your eyes?"
Invented is often seen as the oddball in Jimmy Eat World's discography. Even I can admit that it's a strange album for them. In place of the traditional power-pop songs the band have become known for, we have sweeping, cinematic sketches and songs isolated in their own worlds. It's a bit of a mess pacing wise. If we're approaching this as simply another Jimmy Eat World album I can't blame a soul for slotting this at the bottom of their ranked lists.
But this is not as simple as another Jimmy Eat World album.
Invented is, in part, a concept record. Jim wrote every song as a story inspired by photographs: everyday people doing and experiencing everyday things. This perspective is something Jimmy has always excelled at but it is on Invented that that mode of storytelling gets a chance to shine. Paired with the music's cinematic bend, Invented is the most beautiful sounding and, dare I say, ambitious record in their discography. If you don't believe me, the album opens with the country-inspired "Heart Is Hard To Find." Instead of electric power-chords, we have an acoustic lead and angelic vocals. We have lyrics, not about winning the lottery or hoping for a brighter future, but of feeling as if you're being left out, that the world is moving much too fast. "My Best Theory" and "Higher Devotion" are the kind of rock songs that are completely unfamiliar territory for the band and can be a little difficult to pin down. They're too slow to be placed beside their power-pop hits, there's not a hint of punk or emo to be found, and they're definitely not ballads. They could be safely pinned as Alt-rock yet I haven't heard much else like it in the genre. "Higher Devotion" could pass as a Muse song, with a disco hook that is impossibly infectious. It follows that up with a gorgeous instrumental bridge that I have no problem calling one of the band's best moments. And out of nowhere, in a sea of ballads, comes the first Tom lead rocker since "Blister" in "Action Needs An Audience."
All of this is to say that I understand the indifference towards this album. Invented is not the Jimmy Eat World we know. But on its own terms Invented is an utter masterpiece. The cinematic quality of it invites many comfy or lonely days imagining stories or reminiscing on how important the small things in life are. And I think that's what Invented in a nutshell, at least to me anyway. It's finding something beautiful and priceless in the "little things." The things no sane person would ever take notice of. Perhaps it's missing the seemingly unremarkable memory of enjoying "coffee and cigarettes" with the girl you liked before moving out of town. Or has the feeling of dissatisfaction and disillusionment of every day ever been so honestly captured than on the harrowing "Movielike"? "Cut," sung from a woman's perspective, puts words to the feeling of a lover being too far to reach due to a life of fame. And then there's album's titular track, a wounded and forlorn classic with a building tension that is uncomfortably real. It's almost not a surprise when it explodes in the bridge and all that built-up tension and brokenness is released. It's an astonishing example of effective songwriting. Almost as a response to this, "Mixtape" is the beautifully relieving closer; an endearing, if an imperfect and messy picture of love. It's not romanticized or glamorized, it's real, desperate, even somewhat needy. Invented, from beginning to end, is all about the need for connection, whether it's missing what was, yearning for what could be, or mourning, sometimes bitterly, the connection that's broken. The heart can truly be hard to find.
Invented and Damage are arguably the most polarizing albums in JEW's discography. Although I know and am incredibly glad that Damage album has its adoring fans, my heart belongs to Invented. It might be a little misunderstood, but I won't go to that defence. This album moves me in a wholly unique way. It's not a replication of a prior record or the blueprint of something in the future. It's Invented.
