“... I realize that I wouldn't be who I am today unless everything happened exactly the way it did. I can listen back to our records and hear that maybe I was trying to tell myself some things before...but didn't really want to let them in.

Our 1999 album was called CLARITY, but I really wasn't on a quest for clarity when we put that out.

The crux of the decision is 'Am I going to do something different or am I going to continue even though I hate who I am right now?' That's the difference between surviving and truly living. “That’s the point of the songs on SURVIVING."
                                             -Jim Adkins

SURVIVING
Jimmy Eat World recorded the 10-track set mostly in their home studio, working again with co-producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen, their partner on 2016's INTEGRITY BLUES.

The result is punchy,dynamically explosive &hearkens back to the heavy yet crafted melodic edge that woke the world up to Jimmy Eat World a quarter century ago.

There's plenty of guitar rock on SURVIVING, from the blast off of the title track through the ferocity of "Criminal Energy," "All the Way (Stay)" and "Love Never" and the gritty, propulsive grind of "Diamond." Vibey tracks such as "Delivery," "Recommit" and the lushly majestic "555" expand the album's sonic scope, meanwhile, "One Mil" alternates between pretty acoustic verses and anthemic, stadium-caliber choruses. The set-closing "Congratulations" simmers with an edgy sense of purpose as the group declares "You're on your own. “

Noting that "I was a passenger in my own body for 36 years and never realized it,"Adkinsfills SURIVING's songs with lessons of clarity and insights into the soul and psyche. These are the songs ofsomeone who's had an awakening;accepting the person he was and finding both solace and joy in the continuing process of who he's becoming.

He's living.

"I think we're at the stage in what I would call acareer,and it's important that you have a grasp of why you're doing it. With this being our 10th album, there better be a reason you're continuing --so what is that?"

Much of what Adkins is trying to convey on SURVIVING is a taking of control after becoming sober. No longer is he the prisoner of what he calls "the default operating system" he employed over the years --"I'm just not faithful, that's who I am" or "I'm just awkward in relationships" or "I just drink like that. I guess that's me."

"Criminal Energy," for instance, comes from an expression for moral sickness that Adkins heard in Germany. "Delivery" and "555" are about becoming self-aware.

 "Love Never" celebrates a realization that "love isn't an abstract dream that one day falls out of the sky, fully formed. It’s a choice. It's a verb."

More About Jimmy Eat World:

  -Jimmy Eat World are Jim Adkins, Rick Burch, Tom Linton and Zach Lind.

  -The group has released 9 studio albums

  -5 have reached Top 10 on Billboard’s 200 Chart

  -The band’s last 4 albums have reached Top 5 on Billboard’s Rock Albums Chart and Alternative Albums Chart

   -The group has had 7 Top 10 hits on Billboard’s Alternative Songs Chart with 2 being at #1, “Pain” and “The Middle.”

  -Their third studio album, Clarity was lauded as “one of the greatest emo albums of all time” by Rolling Stonewhile their 4^th studio album, Bleed American, was certified platinum

  -Their latest effort, Integrity Blueswas released in 2016 to rave reviews and produced the Top 10 Alternative single,”Sure & Certain”

Following their acclaimed 2021 album The Million Masks of God, Manchester Orchestra is back with The Valley of Vision, a brand new project that takes on the weighty themes of adulthood, faith and redemption through a wealth of fresh new sounds and textures. But if The Million Masks of God served as a cry for help - exploring a man’s encounter with the angel of death, inspired by frontman and songwriter Andy Hull’s reflections on grief as well as the battle with cancer faced by guitarist Robert McDowell’s father - The Valley of Vision offers a collective, cathartic expression of gratitude. Throughout the 27-minute album, you can almost feel the band take a giant exhale and then put its arms around you.

Continuing to push themselves into fascinating and immersive creative realms with each release has always been the mantra for Manchester Orchestra, and The Valley of Vision finds the band reinvigorated once again. Across the six-song salvo and VR film out March 10th, the band conjures a story that is further illuminated through a cinematic experience by writer-director Isaac Deitz, created with 3D-computed radiography technology.

Hull started writing and recording The Valley of Vision in the summer of 2021, sparking a spontaneous and new approach to releasing his band's music. “Making this was an exciting idea of what the future could be for us in terms of how we create.”

Hull was inspired to begin writing the record while rummaging around in his suitcase looking for his lyric notebook and instead found The Valley of Vision, a 1975 book of old Puritan prayers his mom had given to him the previous Christmas. “I realized it should be our title too, because to me, it meant you can’t see the forest for the trees, but you’re recognizing you’re in the valley, and you can eventually get out,” he says.

Sonically, those energies evoke places Manchester Orchestra has visited on prior albums without ever really setting up a permanent home. In fact, there’s not much guitar at all on The Valley of Vision, and Andy Prince’s bass operates in sub-synth frequencies rarely utilized before. In other instances, drum parts by Tim Very were excised from one song and repurposed in other places they weren’t originally intended to go. The whole feeling is one of peacefulness, even zen — perhaps because recording sessions at a converted manor in Muscle Shoals, Ala., were “almost a complete abandonment of all the instruments we’re used to using,” Hull says.

“None of these songs were written with the band being in the same room in a live setting,” he continues. “They were really like science experiments that started from the bottom and were added to gradually over time, to catch the vibe of each one.”

Opener “Capital Karma” and “Quietly” are both songs Hull composed via his idiosyncratic self-taught methods on piano, which involve him physically writing notes on the keys to remind himself what he’s actually playing. “The Way” is a beautifully atmospheric, piano-and-beats-powered ballad, which Hull credits Million Masks producers Ethan Gruska and Catherine Marks with helping him shape after struggling for years with how to present it.

Elsewhere, the uplifting “Lose You Again” is the first Manchester Orchestra song in a long time that could be played with acoustic guitars around a campfire, while “Letting Go” threads wisps of emotive, effects-drenched vocals through gorgeous shimmers of sound.

“We decided, let’s live in that feeling,” Hull says. “When we tried to add anything that took us out of it, it started to feel contrived and forced. We try to listen to our instincts when it comes to that. As far as just going for some of the sounds, we’re intrigued by doing things the wrong way or attempting things we haven’t done before and getting inspired by them.”