The Advance

Issue date: 10/22/09 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: artrusche.com

After building a devoted fan base through tours, with the B-list Emo groups likes of Bayside and Cute Is What We Aim For, the young suburban Nashville quintet busted out in a major way. With 2007's "Riot!," a powerful little smart bomb of righteous-babe rhetoric, Paramore earned a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist, alongside Taylor Swift and Amy Winehouse.
They hunt slightly bigger game on the follow-up, "Brand New Eyes," which, at a moment of wet-and-wild Warped Tour cynicism, offer a principled reminder of a more earnest, honest age. In "Turn It Off," Williams protests that "it's getting harder to believe in anything" and rails against "shortcuts and false solutions," while opener "Careful" urges fellow inhabitants of the Disinformation Age to "open up your eyes like I opened mine."
In "Playing God," she takes aim at bully-pulpit blowhards, and "Brick by Boring Brick," the album's philosophical centerpiece, lays out the singer's worldview with the same degree of clarity she employed in "Riot!'s." "Brand New Eyes" killer power-ballad closer is "All I Wanted".
Her fresh-faced band mates don't leave her hanging either, attacking their spring-loaded pop punk with the unbridled enthusiasm of diehards.
Paramore recorded "Eyes" in Los Angeles, CA with big-rock guru Rob Cavallo. The song "Playing God" has some zippy new-wave harmonies, and "The Only Exception" is a surprisingly soulful acoustic number.
Instead, the upgrade is one of focus and intensity.
Last year, rumors swirled about the possible breakup of the group, and two tracks on the album, "Looking Up" and "Where the Lines Overlap," play like responses to that hubbub. "God knows the world doesn't need another band, But what a waste it would have been," Williams wails in the former, before adding, "I can't believe we almost hung it up." In the latter, over a typically speedy, robo-garage groove, she admits, "No one is as lucky as us." Given Paramore's purity of purpose, however, luck isn't really part of the equation.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools