In October, Jimmy Eat World’s fifth studio album “Futures” turned 15. This week, I listened to it for the first time.

I’d always been a fan of the group by proxy, after those better and more thorough at consuming music tipped me off to albums like “Clarity” and “Bleed American” -- at times going as far as to suggest which songs on those albums to start with, where to work from there, and so on. And they were always right. It was never not a fundamentally good use of my time.

But it wasn’t until we started doing the show that people began assuming, wrongfully, that I must’ve been hugely into “Futures” at the time of its release. They’re not wrong to assume this, but they are wrong in that I, until now, had never listened to a single track off the record.

Every conceivable metric would probably suggest “Pain” (Track 6) followed immediately by “Drugs or Me” (Track 7) should have knocked me right in the teeth on first listen. But it didn’t happen that way, and I’m not sure I could explain why. People say timing is everything.

It’s a shame, really, as “Drugs or Me” was the perfect song for my 14-year-old self: I had absolutely no reason to relate to it, but probably would have listened enough to do the necessary mental gymnastics to do exactly that.

(Exhibit A: “Reckless Abandon” by Blink-182. I’d never give a dog the brownie drugs, or take a shit in the bathroom tub, for that matter. At least not intentionally?)

After a few spins, I think I’m comfortable saying “Futures” may be one of the group’s best album openers. (“Big Casino” is my favorite, but “Futures” may be the group’s defining album opener, taking a page from the “Bleed American” playbook -- that is to say, “here’s a title track with a riff, take it in, adopt it, care for it, it is our gift to you and we’re in this together.”) “Work” certainly soars and may be the best song on the album.

But while listening, I was trying to think how 14-year-old me would have taken the record in, and I kept coming back to the tandem of “Pain” and “Drugs or Me” in the middle of the album. It was while listening to these songs that I realized what I enjoy most about Jimmy Eat World. For lack of a better way to explain or phrase this, it’s the group’s ability to say:

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

I’d heard this phenomenon on “Clarity” and “Bleed American” hundreds of times over before listening to “Futures” but I’d never realized what it was until now.

Jimmy first asked me where the fuck I thought I was going when the distortion from “Believe in What You Want” faded into “A Sunday” on “Clarity.” You know that thing in movies where a guy takes a sword to the gut and should die but instead looks his attacker in the eye and pulls the sword deeper into his own body? That’s roughly what happens at this point on “Clarity.” “Believe In What You Want” rocks, almost in an emotionally draining way, and just when you think you are going to escape, they double down with a slower, somehow more emotionally draining song of equal quality.

This is as if to ask, of course: Where in the heck you think you’re going, mister? We’re not done here.

The best and most clear example of this is probably on “Bleed American.” “Sweetness” is just done melting the flesh off your face when “Hear You Me” hits, and you hear the line “on sleepless roads the sleepless go” for the first time, and Jimmy is just pulling that sword deeper and deeper into his own body with no regard for human life, entrails exposed for all to see.

Of course, this change of speed appears on “Futures” as well (when “Pain” ends and the softer “Drugs or Me” begins), something I had not realized until this week.

It’s not new to say that Jimmy Eat World is versatile and important, but it’s worth reminding ourselves every once in a while — if only once every 15 years or so.

-download or stream the full discussion on ‘Futures’ below-

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Appreciating what Jimmy Eat World does best, 15 years into 'Futures'

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