*** Jimmy Eat World

CLARITY

(Capitol)

Although a complete family tree would reveal emocore as a distant branch of hardcore, the genre has assimilated enough in the way of traditional structure and melodic smarts to make it all but indistinguishable from contemporary rock. It's become a refuge of stylized, often elegant modern guitar pop for people who don't trust the conventions of pop music. That said, Jimmy Eat World are among the most conventionally conventional of all the bands to fall under the effusive emo rubric. In other words, if you end up wondering what Clarity (the band's third album overall, and second for Capitol) has to do with punk rock -- on, say, the hushabye string-laden chamber rock of "Table for Glasses" or "A Sunday" -- you won't be alone.

Although insiders may detect that JEW have gleaned a glissando or two from the works of Samiam, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Jawbox, the breadth of Clarity will likely appeal to unindoctrinated listeners along less obscure bloodlines. In the shimmery, radiant minimalism of the piano-framed "For Me This Is Heaven," JEW recall Eno/Lanois-era U2; the voltage-surge insulation of the semi-automatic "Lucky Denver Mint" and the elegiac "Believe in What You Want" has a fiery, autumnal overdriven glow evoking the suspended insularity of Hum or Smashing Pumpkins. JEW are certainly reaching for something more than straight pop -- the epic 16-minute closer wafts from dazed drone through dreamy ethereal glimmer into homemade techno and back again, displaying the ambition -- if not quite the intellectual firepower -- of Sonic Youth's "The Diamond Sea" or a Björk remix. And though "Crush" could be a calling card for any number of more dogmatic emo acts, Clarity is a near-perfect pop album without it.

-- Carly Carioli

(Jimmy Eat World perform this Sunday, March 14, at the Middle East. Call 864-EAST.)