Longtime fans expecting pretty post-hardcore may be surprised by the latest from Southwesterners Jimmy Eat World. Backed by DreamWorks (but recorded on the band's own, pre-signing), this self-titled CD (formerly called 'Bleed American') is the Red Bull of summer albums, a sugar-soaked, adrenalin-pumping, often soaring power-pop soundtrack for driving too fast, drinking too much and, like the best summer rock records, falling for someone. It's all here, from the title-track opener, an irresistible (and completely unthreatening) rock song with the refrain "Salt, sweat/ Sugar on the asphalt" to the vaguely Squeeze-tinged, new-waver "The Middle" to the uncharacteristically spare cool-down track "Your House," which recalls a band probably never mentioned in the same sentence as Jimmy Eat World before - indie-rockers Versus. When the band lapses into lyrical clichés like "Kick start my rock 'n' roll heart" or "Crimson and clover/ Over and over" in "A Praise Chorus," it becomes apparent that there's a larger theme at work - in this case, a paean to the early pop-rock that influenced this recording. Without sounding too much like the artists the children of the '80s grew up on, there's still an obvious debt here to the best of that decade's anthem-crafters, from Def Leppard to Hall & Oates. We may not have a final school dance to attend these days, but this record encourages a pleasing retreat into the simple, poignant, John Hughes-esque flavors of feeling we thought music couldn't elicit anymore.

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