The success of "Bleed American" was either the best or worst thing to happen to Jimmy Eat World [ tickets ]'s career. While the 2001 album vaulted the Mesa, AZ, quartet into national prominence, it also seemed to ostracize the band from the resentful indie-rock set.

The group's fifth studio album, "Chase This Light," won't do much to appease the traditionalists (we know, you cried yourself to sleep listening to "Clarity"), but it's time to move on and accept Jimmy Eat World for the band it is: one that has honed the three-minute pop-rock anthem, inspiring countless clones along the way. And what, exactly, is wrong with that?

With Butch Vig (Nirvana, Against Me!) aboard as executive producer and Grammy winner Chris Testa (Dixie Chicks' "Taking the Long Way") co-producing, "Chase" had a running start on 2004's "Futures," a darker, if inconsistent, outing. Save for the sobering "Gotta Be Somebody's Blues," "Chase" is bigger and brighter, though it doesn't have the immediate grab of "Bleed American."

"Electable (Give it Up)," frontman Jim Adkins' diatribe against politics, features some of the group's most aggressive guitar work since "Clarity," and "Feeling Lucky" is a two-and-a-half-minute clinic on how to write a hook.

Lyrically, Adkins finds comfort in nostalgia, a 30-something reflecting on where he's been and what lies ahead. On the lead single "Big Casino," Adkins sounds humble amid the swirling guitars around him: "Well there's lots of smart ideas in books I've never read / When the girls come talk to me I wish to hell I had."

Even if some of the lyrics approach the cheesy--"Get up, get up, dance on the ceiling"--Adkins delivers them with conviction, a bold move in our culture of hasty backlash. And that's what makes Jimmy Eat World feel honest and familiar--a band comfortable in its own skin.