Paramore never should have gotten this far. Since their debut album, All We Know is Falling, the band has went through so much turmoil: seemingly constant personnel changes, lawsuits, and jealousy, that it's a wonder that they are still around. Not only that, they are the only band that came out of the emo/scene genre of the mid0noughties that have survived without losing their identity. Bands like Panic at the Disco, and Fallout Boy are a shadow of their former selves- Fallout Boy particularly have become a joke, but Paramore seem to thrive on drama with their best work coming after the initial boom.
The wait for their albums has become longer, their last being the eclectic self-titled effort of 2013, mainly because after each tour they have to decide whether they still want to be a band in the first place. Thankfully Hayley Williams, guitarist Taylor York and drummer Zac Farro, who in my opinion are the best version of the band, decided to give it another shot. The result is After Laughter: which sees the band fully transition into the great pop act I always wanted them to be. Don't get me wrong, I still like the bands back-catalogue, I even put myself through a refresher course and found them to be a lot more impressive than I remembered, but rocking out always seemed to limiting for a talent like Hayley Williams, and York and Farro have equally risen to the task of crafting great music that complements her talents as a frontwoman.
The album opens with hit single "Hard Times", which only gets better every time I listen to it. It's new wave feel brings to mind a curious mesh of The Cure at their most pop crossed with Fleetwood Mac, with Williams open line "All that I want/ is to wake up fine/ tell me that I'm alright, that I ain't gonna die" is right out of the Robert Smith book of melodic angst. "Rose Coloured Boy" takes things into Talking Heads territory as Williams abandons looking on the bright side in order to just feel what she needs top feel.
What I've noticed about After Laughter, compared to songs on say Riot, is that Williams’s lyrics are looking inward. One of Paramore's strengths in the early days was how melodramatic they were, with Williams' lyrics coming out as confrontational, like the world was ending and it wasn't her fault. I was a teenager when I listened to these albums, and I enjoyed the heightened intensity of these emotions, with the musicality feeling rougher, and an intense need to experience everything. After Laughter is an antidote to that. William's is a year older than me, and while I didn't grow up in the media spotlight in a position I was thrust into by labels and the press, I can relate a lot to the issues she talks about on this album. Take "Caught in the Middle": it's definitely a song about how her position as the face of Paramore affects her relationships, but it can also be read as being on the precipice of real adulthood. "Fake Happy" is an anti-anthem about to much positivity. Again I can relate to this as I've been told in the past that positivity is key in moving forward in your life, which sounds exhausting and fake. Even on closer "Tell Me How", which is the album's best song, Williams's pleads with her subject to tell her how to feel about them now that the relationship, whether romantic, friendship, or professional, is gone. She needs a new context.
Context is key here, as Paramore as a pop group actually makes them feel more like a band rather than Hayley Williams backing band. As much as I like the previous hard rocking approach it didn't really bring out the identity of the other members of the band. The variety of instruments played here, the difference in tone helps bring York and Farro into the mix. This is a three piece, rather than a solo project.
After Laughter proves that Paramore are still an important band, a band that can make sincere, hook-filled pop music that is fun, deep, and heartfelt, and makes what's in the charts look half finished by comparison.
