Every Jimmy Eat World Album: Ranked From Worst To Best

Invented is sort of the bastard child of the Jimmy Eat World catalogue, despite encompassing so many of the qualities that have endeared the band to their fans. There are flashes of Clarity-era fuzz rockers (the return of Tom Linton on lead vocals for "Action Needs an Audience"), as well as the lilting, upbeat tracks that pushed them into the mainstream ("Movielike", "Littlething") and, of course, the epic slow burners they do so well.

And yet, there's something about the album as a whole that simply doesn't gel. It feels less like a Jimmy Eat World album and more like a younger band trying their best to recreate a Jimmy Eat World album.

Maybe it's something to do with how the songs on Invented were written. Rather than searching inward for the album's themes, Jim Adkins says he wrote most of the lyrics after pouring over collections of photographs and then writing down whatever came to mind about the people in them.

Although it's certainly an interesting approach that helps freshen things up - "Heart Is Hard to Find" is as outside-the-box as you'll likely hear them get - it also flies in the face of what makes Jimmy Eat World such an impactful band. Invented lacks that intimate sting, resulting in an occasionally fascinating (but mostly mild) potpourri.