CD Review: “Brand New” Paramore delivers solid yet uninspiring album

Photo courtesy of Paramore's official website

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October 9, 2009 • written by Macy Linton  
Filed under Reviews

With recent success from their second album and a song featured on the Twilight soundtrack not too far behind them, Paramore delivers “Brand New Eyes,” their follow-up to 2007’s immensely popular “Riot.” Spin Magazine named it one of the most important albums of the year almost immediately after its release, although why is impossible to say. “Brand New Eyes” is nice and altogether a very well-received album, but in terms of importance it falls just very barely above the mass of other albums in this genre to hit shelves in 2009.

Paramore delivers guitar-driven, drum heavy rock that, despite their slightly angrier, slightly less juvenile themes this time around, is still unerringly wholesome and sure to please their fans. Songs sweep and take on a more epic, heroic approach—differing from those on “Riot” by having a less ‘straight-forward’ rock sound—with the emotion varying from disgust to anger to sadness to love, but not too far outside of those dimensions. Unfortunately, there’s not anything as interesting as “Misery Business” or “Crushcrushcrush” to make the album a bit more interesting.

Lead singer Hayley Williams, indisputably the star of the show, delivers her tales of rampant emo emotions with more chops than you can attribute to most other current emo bands, and with a certain optimism that is undeniably likeable. Really, the entire album is a testament to how Hayley’s voice is the driving force behind the band’s success. Above the average yet well-delivered instrumental music and through the standard phrasing of the lyrics, Hayley’s girlish, rich pathos makes every word’s meaning stand out. Anyone who has ever heard the petite redhead sing Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody” will know the feeling.

“Careful” contains the kind of angrily delivered lyrics (“The truth never set me free, so I’ll do it myself”) that epitomize Paramore’s upbeat attitude towards unhappy times. Sad lyrics are delivered powerfully while clichés are made angry, and love and sad times are taken head-on with a kind of detached nostalgia. It is this kind of contradiction—of making ‘average’ interesting and powerful—that makes Paramore a band somewhat worth listening to.