Between the aggressive guitar attack, its outrageously catchy chorus and Williams intoning “If you have an opinion / Maybe you should shove it / Or maybe you could scream it / Might be best to keep it / To yourself,” this song should be the open car window soundtrack of Spring 2023. This is most true of the new album’s title track, a complexly soulful number with a woozily psychedelic bridge and jazzy free rhythms that refuses to let go of its anthemic chorus.
Even during slower, meandering songs such as the mid-tempo “You First,” or“Figure 8,” with its Philip Glass-like backing track, it feels as if the entirely of what they’re up to is teetering and about to fall off its axis. This angular architecture gives Paramore – even at its sleekest, as produced by Carlos de la Garza – a dirtball, post-punk energy that’s irresistible. For five albums between 2005’s “All We Know Is Falling” and 2017’s “After Laughter,” lead vocalist Hayley Williams, guitarist Taylor York and drummer Zac Farro ran through shiny punk that swelled to synth-pop symphonia before calling it a day.įor their return, it sounds like guitarist York and drummer Farro have dialed in their old Vic Chesnutt and Gang of Four albums, as every spiky riff and punchy drum snap here is jaggedly askew and rhythmically off-the beat. Never truly content to be an atypical Fueled by Ramen band on the sad-sack, power-pop tip, Paramore did almost everything against mope-emo-type, save for jettisoning indignant lyrical outrage and melodic contagion when it came to crushingly catchy choruses. To that end, Paramore has probably made its best-ever album, or at least one that embraces present-day anxiety without fitting easily into any Hot Topic playlist. After six years of Paramore’s members doing solid solo work and being away from each other as a band, they’ve crafted a sixth album, “This Is Why,” that takes all that anyone loved about them in the past and made it craggier and cattier, allowing themselves to face the concerns that come with age and social change without being heavy-handed about it.
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