Emo elitists might flinch at the suggestion that Jimmy Eat World conjures the hookfests of the Goo Goo Dolls on its latest album, but it's not an entirely pejorative comparison. After all, before vocalist Johnny Rzeznik morphed into a Bon Jovi doppelgänger, Goo had the heart of a brash bar band. Futures practically booms with such blackened sugar. Somersaulting riffs, mind-expanding choruses and dreamy textures drive midtempo janglers and starry-eyed ballads. Singer Jim Adkins channels Rzeznik's gruff singing style on the soaring title track and the harmonic "Work," and Jimmy Eat World expands its sonic palette without rehashing the jagged chords of past hits "The Middle" or "Sweetness." The occasional power-pop solo, jolt of spark-plug guitar or whip-cracking rhythm is as close as Futures gets to modern-rock mayhem. But by mirroring the Goo Goo Dolls' ascension to VH-1 poster children, Jimmy Eat World shows signs of diminishing returns, including a tendency toward syrupy earnestness, bad teenage poetry (Kiss me with your cherry lipstick) and overblown melodrama (the 7-minute, string-laden torch song "23") that seems primed for a Meg Ryan weeper.
