Of the five tracks on
Jimmy Eat World
's 2005 EP
Stay on My Side Tonight
, three are songs the band worked on during the recording of
Futures
but decided didn't work on that record. It is hard to see why they were left off, as they are as good as -- if not better than -- some of the more pedestrian material that did make the cut. Maybe it is the slightly less polished sound, and maybe it is the fact that they aren't surrounded by 50 minutes of similar-sounding songs, but the three songs have more life and power than one might expect.
"Disintegration"
is an epic dirge that builds impressively and ends with the chanted vocals that give the EP its name;
"Closer"
is a hooky, lightweight
pop
tune that harks back to the mood of
Bleed American
; and
"Over,"
while slightly less impressive than the other two, is a decent
emo
ballad
. The other two tracks are interesting but not vital. They gamely cover
Heatmiser
's
"Half Right"
but can't quite find the magic that
Elliott Smith
was so effortlessly able to conjure up. The
Styrofoam
remix of
'
"Drugs or Me"
is OK, with the vocals glitched into near oblivion and the tune bouncing along on a bouncy, broken beat. So there's nothing earthshaking, but fans will want to grab it, and those who were put off by the slick surface of
might take some solace in the slightly stripped-down sound -- and hope that
continue to shed their studio sheen by the time the next album is recorded. ~ Tim Sendra