Forgive us for being behind on the news, but we’ve been secretely busy putting together the new Jaimee Eat World website and working on new covers for that project so we haven’t had time to talk about this yet.

But Jimmy Eat World released a new song!

Or, an old-ish song, but never released before.

Speaking on the track, the band said, “By 2021, it felt like distancing restrictions were finally easing and we could get back on the road. Our Surviving album had barely been released before we were performing live again and reconnecting with fans. Coming out of the pandemic, it didn’t feel right to tour without offering something more, so we took the chance to share a few more tracks we’d been working on. At the time, it seemed like listeners were gravitating toward playlists rather than full albums, so we decided to meet them where they were.”

Now, we have some thoughts about that idea that Jimy Eat World, the band who for the entirety of their career have been applauded for just sort of following their own gut rather than the market trends (that’s how we got Clarity, remember?) have now shifted that perspective and done a bit of a 180 on that school of thought and are meeting listeners where they are or seem to be – and mostly, we think that kinda sucks.

Mostly because Jimmy Eat World are a great albums band, not a great singles band. Not every artist is. Hell, back in the day when we were all still buying CD’s at record stores, you often went into it with little knowledge of if you’d even like what you were purchasing. How many times did we all buy a record because a single as poppin’ on the radio only to find it was literally the only good track on the record? Too many times to count, frankly. But it was part of the experience and every once in a while you’d discover artists that understood great record making. When I buy a Jimmy Eat World record, a full-length one, I know it’s gonna be a hit from top to bottom.

Online reviews of Failure are mixed and I expect them to be after giving it a few spins myself. Failure is a Surviving b-side and it’s easy to see why – there is just no way this song would have made sense in any sequence point on that record. It doesn’t follow the songwriting trends that the rest of the album does and it doesn’t really try to be anything other than what it is. With no real lift or peak, it just sort of oozes along and sucks you into it’s slimy folds. In this way it sits better alongside other b-sides like Disintigration and Shame – actually, come ot think of it, could the band just go ahead an start coupling all these like-minded b-sides into their own album? Crazy thought, but it could work and be rad as hell.

All that said, I love Failure. It’s exactly what it should be, right down to the “la, la la’s” that some fans have been chirping on social media as a little lazy or uninspired. Have you heard the song? It’s actually kind of a genius part of the track and I do believe it will grow on you like moss if it hasn’t already.

So sure, it’s just a b-side single, but just as the other band’s b-sides, it’s great in its own right and will definitely get some more spins from this bundle of twigs.

You can pre-order the band’s new EP Something(s) Loud now on their online store. The EP features Failure alongside previous releases Place Your Debts & Something Loud as well as an acoustic cut of Something Loud, TW Walsh’s remix of Place Your Debts and the band’s cover of Crooked Fingers Call To Love featuring Bethany Consentino.

A disappointing possible revelation to this new EP, however? Is there.. is there not going to be a Something Loud full-length? It’s not looking good from our treehouse and that sucks if we’re right. Something Loud was a killer track to come back with after Surviving; It seemed to show that we might be re-entering a soundscape that was like aperfect blend of Futures and Chase This Light, but maybe the band is just over making great fucking rock records and wants to make a Gracie Abrams ambient experimental pop one next instead because that’s what’s trending now.

Hopefully not. Get back in the garage, boys.