xdevx – cd & live reviews

It’s not as if Paramore haven’t been feeling the pressure after their immense success of their breakthrough album ‘RIOT!’, but ‘Brand new Eyes’ succeeds in presenting the band as a stronger, more focused and altogether more consistent band. ‘Brand new Eyes’ could be called their own ‘The Bends’. Produced by Grammy award winning Rob Cavallo (Green Day, My Chemical Romance, Avril Lavigne)] the sound quality obviously remains ultra-clean, makes the listening experience relatively risk-free and also brings attention to the fact that there’s not a lot of groundbreaking or experiments being made. It could have been Flyleaf, but it still remains miles ahead of their peers. Sure, the array is still all you would expect from flame-haired frontwoman Hayley Williams’ combo as it mainly involves painting by numbers through the captivating fast paced opening track (‘Careful’), palpably blatant singalongs (‘Looking up’), heartwarming ballads ['The only Exception' (probably the best Coldplay song since 'Parachutes'), 'Misguided Ghosts' (indicating the imminent split of the band?)], the pretentious uber ‘Twilight’ soundtrack song (‘Decode’), the standard so-so single (‘Ignorance’) and some fillers (‘Feeling sorry’, ‘All I wanted’). It’s all formulaic, but I don’t think you can await any more compelling mainstream targeted pop/punk this sales period. See for how long it’ll last…

Hayley Williams, frontsinger of Paramore (click to enlarge)

Paramore – Ignorance

(mehr zum Bewertungssystem findet Ihr in der Score-Legende)