The appearance of legendary grunge producer Butch Vig (Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins) behind the production desk should have ensured an interesting new take on the Jimmy Eat World sound. Instead his involvement must be an apparition considering the retread that Chase This Light becomes - lacking in passion, colour and vibrancy. It is bitterly ironic then that the front cover depicts a rainbow close up of a peacock feather.

Although still characterised by the big riffs and sing-a-long power of the group’s most popular work, the album feels rushed - despite the three year hiatus since their last album. It seems the band have eschewed the darker, more mature, territory of 2004’s Futures in favour of a regressive attempt to recapture the power pop urgency of their 2001 breakthrough Bleed American.

The resulting sting is an album that sounds like a collection of singles, as every song settles into similar tempos and energy, with a blurring sameness to the tracklist. While this means a sense of immediacy on the first few spins, it soon becomes clear there are no rewarding depths to this approach. The worst offenders being “Feeling Lucky,” a torrid re-write of 2002 single “Sweetness” and the title track, which apes the point but not the poignancy of the band’s Clairty-era work.

Shoehorned between these two however, is “Here It Goes” a buoyant and over-the-top production of layered vocals, handclaps and fuzzy guitar. A moment that proves that the Arizona four-piece can, and have, achieved brilliance. But it also showcases that even thought the album contains definite highlights; they shine only the brighter because they are sandwiched between spates of dullness.

What redeems and validates the album, aside from key tracks “Electable (Give It Up)” and “Dizzy,” is frontman Jim Adkins’ lyrical self-awareness at the onset of old age. Becoming a theme first heralded in “Big Casino,” it provides a cohesion to the album that is otherwise lacking. Lyrics that are at times as heroic as they are earnest, “and I’ll tell you something else you ain’t died enough to know/ there’s still some living left when your prime comes and goes.”

Overall, Chase This Light is the weakest of the group’s output thus far. A real shame considering it has been released at the point when Jimmy Eat World has the attention of their widest audience yet.

Rating: 3/5