Review: Paramore – Brand New Eyes

October 20th, 2009 by Oswald Hobbes / Comment on this post

With 2007’s Riot! Paramore rode a jangly and simple pop-punk sound to platinum crossover glory, and they keep the edges safely beveled with their new album Brand New Eyes. There’s plenty of punchy, sugary goodness for the band’s die hard excitable-teenage-girl fan base to latch on to here, but study the grooves closely and you’ll find enough substance to enchant even those over the legal drinking age.

Produced by Rob Cavallo (who mastered capturing this particular art form 15 years ago with Green Day’s Dookie), Brand New Eyes is factory fresh and ready for radio. Lead single “Ignorance” taps into the same well of girlish indignation and churning guitars that propelled their breakthrough hit “Misery Business” to Alternative Nation (Jr. Division) dominance. It’s not a new sound, but their SoundScan numbers indicate the formula ain’t broken. The band succeeds most, though, when they keep the tone bright with late album standouts “Feeling Sorry,” “Looking Up,” and “Where The Lines Overlap,” a trifecta of perfect pop that makes a decent (and somewhat shocking) case for Brand New Eyes as a coherent album rather than a singles collection padded with filler. “Where The Lines Overlap” is the most winning, with it’s joyful chorus refrain of “No one’s as lucky as us!” and sweetly melodic riffage.

“The Only Exception” and “Misguided Ghosts” fulfill the obligatory “sensitive” portion of the record with varying success. The former track has the boring acoustic guitars and fey twinkling of reheated mid-90’s AOR rock (think an even lamer Dishwalla) but “Misguided Ghosts” travels most of the distance towards being genuinely affecting via unadorned guitar strums and wistful vocals.

Those vocals are, more than likely, what you’re here for, and Hayley Williams is in fine form throughout. Her spunky personality and Hot Topic good looks are obviously key to the band’s success but it’s still easy to underestimate the genuine talent she possesses for pushing hooks into interesting new directions and imbuing every utterance with absolute sincerity. She lets it rip on the relatively epic “Brick By Boring Brick,” salvaging a clumsy chorus with forceful verses and some old-fashioned gang vocals at the end, and her performance on album closer “All I Wanted” is nothing short of stunning – by the time Brand New Eyes fades out on a short wave of guitar distortion, there’s no real excuse to be dissatisfied.

Paramore has delivered, again, an album much better than was necessary. Brand New Eyes may be familiar at every turn, but it’s the good kind of familiar – this record makes me wish I was still in high school so I could play it loud in my car without attracting odd looks from fellow motorists. Paramore don’t do avant-garde; they do indestructible and spit-shined. Brand New Eyes is unabashedly lightweight; that doesn’t make its pleasures any easier to resist. When Williams sings “I’ve got a feeling that if I sang this loud enough, you would sing it back to me,” it’s difficult to contradict her.

Choice jams: