Paramore – brand new eyes

Paramore have always been a slightly confusing band for me. Their debut album, All We Know Is Falling, came out and with its release captured a large amount of fans, myself included. At sixteen, Hayley Williams had powerful vocals and the musicianship, your basic pop-rock fare, was pretty entertaining as well. It was a record that I enjoyed but one that soon fell into distant memory. Their sophomore effort,Riot!, was released and they became a household name. With a few big singles and inclusion in games like Rock Band, Paramore blew up but I felt Riot! was missing something. The singles were alright, but the record was overly polished and felt somewhat numb. Decode, the massive hit from Twilight that brought Paramore a legion of teenybopper fans, simply extended that bland feeling. Even now, as the song is playing on my CD player beside me, I can’t help but feel the song is boring and generic.

The question then was what would they do with brand new eyes, their third album and follow-up to all that success? Would they release another ultra-radio-friendly pop-rock album that seems overly polished and bland? Would they return to their debut stage and deliver an album that is strong upon first listen but had since faded into distant memory? I wasn’t sure and was somewhat ambivalent to get a hold of it.

Luckily for us, Paramore did neither and instead brand new eyes sees a band progressing and maturing; finding comfort in a sound and pushing it just a bit to make a much more engaging and entertaining album.

Now, don’t get me wrong, this is still Paramore and it still sounds like Paramore. If you hated them before, you’ll hate them now. If you liked them before, you’ll like them now; and there are still a few forgettable filler tracks. In fact, the album starts off that way with the one-two punch of Careful and Ignorance who, along with Where The Lines Overlap, are the weakest tracks on the album. The tracks see the band being too safe and just sticking to the Decode formula but when they take a step away from that radio-pop-rock anthem structure they’re able to really sell the album.

The highlights always come when they slow it down a bit. The Only Exception, a slow, acoustically-led track that comes at the halfway point, is the first indication of this. Williams’ vocals show their first sign of real maturity and growth on the track and even through the repetition of “you are the only exception” becomes a tad redundant by the end, the song successfully sends the album into the later of the album on a high. They ride that high through the next few songs as both Feeling Sorry and Looking Up (a song about their almost break-up before the recording of the album) show that they can still deliver a high-energy song that doesn’t fall victim to over-production.

However, none of this prepares you for the two closing tracks: Misguided Ghosts and All I Wanted. Individually and together, these two tracks make you step back and go “wow.” First is Misguided Ghosts which sees Williams singing the best she ever has and has the best guitar hook on the album. Not only that, but listen to the track with headphones on and you’ll hear that each guitar is being played through separate speakers which adds a nice little layer to the sound of the track. All I Wanted brings the full band back in and once again shows off Williams’ improved vocals and extended range.

As an added bonus they throw in a copy of Decode to the end of the album which is nice in theory but it does weaken the ending of the album quite drastically too. It’s a minor fault though and not one that is worthy of much thought.

brand new eyes is still a Paramore album but it has seen a significant improvement in almost all aspects. There’s still a few filler tracks and the occasional moment of over-polished radio-rock fodder but there are also times where they just go above and beyond expectations and that makes brand new eyes very enjoyable.