Paramore - After Laughter (May 12th, 2017) Album • Page 81

I never thought I would like a paramore album this much lol. damn.

 

Same ha I've always enjoyed their release but never as much as this one.

 

I'm just so happy. Paramore is one of those bands I've loved and followed for 10 years but they've never released that perfect album for me. This album is perfect. 10 listens in and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't change a single thing. In any case, I can't stop coming here and talking about it.

 

This is the first album of theirs I've enjoyed start to finish.

 

not gonna lie it'd be pretty great if their next album was like, super subdued sounding and really dark with like post-rock vibes but then all the lyrics are so amazingly upbeat and Hayley is just like "Yea this is the happiest we've been in years we just wanted to try another new sound"

 

Zac looks so much like Jason Schwartzman in the Told You So video that I feel it would be a missed opportunity not to ask Wes Anderson to direct the next video

 

the chanting on the second track is so goddamn bad

 

I think you meant good

 

this one stuck with me the most the first few listens too. i really like it

 

This and DAMN are really vying for my AOTY

 

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh no that is not the answer we were looking for sorry try again next week on an all new episode of jeopardy

 

Fake Happy is perfect

 

rest of the song is great though

 

Paramore: After Laughter Album Review | Pitchfork

 

"Instead of going to war with Williams’ words, the music acts as a gleaming counterpoint, a nostalgic lifeline from one friend to another."

This is the best interpretation of the mood of lyrics/music divide I think we're gonna see

 

"Her latest album"

Hmm.

 

This band has gotten better with every release. Cuts from the first two are fantastic and albums 3-5 are all lovely pieces of music that I and surely many others support 100%. A perpetually and unfairly maligned group with, for a decade now, much more substance than many seem to realize or accept. They consistently display solid, interesting (and oft-unexpected) instrumentation with seamless melodies and towering vocals, yet they're too often recognized, faulted and/or dismissed due to their frontwoman's personal life, associations with other people/groups and internal affairs.

In short, a band you must listen to that many won't ever.

 

This album is immediately compelling and self-assured. It sounds like Paramore, not a bunch of sounds Paramore's trying to emulate and build on. Hayley sounds better than ever, Zac is so in the pocket it's as if he never left, and Taylor seems to be carving out a sense of style here; a subdued, yet angular staccato that I want more of. Hooks for day, that's obvious at this point, what really impresses me this time around is that I can't remember the last time a band had 80's revival sounds on a record but didn't make an 80's revival record. Keyboard-heavy stuff always seems to be the base of a lot of bands' sounds these days, but Paramore managed to grab just enough for flourishes and layers, not any sort of sonic redefinition. Maybe that's why this album sounds like a clear step forward and not to the side. They didn't lean into the bombast and overblown nature that can be the downside to those synth-centric sounds, so kudos to them for paring back when they needed to and turning up when it was called for as well. Just an effortless and dynamic release from start to finish, a first listen I won't soon forget.

 

Not gonna lie 7.5 feels a bit low, but coming from P4k, that's about as high as we should probably expect for a Paramore review. Like a lot of their criticism, I think the words speak more for the album than the numerical score.

I have to say that I think the band (and in particular Williams) receive a lot of criticism for being one of the only acts in the scene (and although it seems to have diversified, I wonder how much of it is at least partially in thanks to their contribution) to feature a female frontwoman. Let's be real, at the time AWKIF dropped, a lot of popular bands that weren't named after brutalizing or murdering women weren't too ashamed to be putting blatant references to it in their music. I think this was mostly an aesthetic choice and not necessarily any true advocacy for real-life violence, but it is also representative of a real misogyny "in the scene" (one that seems to ironically pride itself in being progressive and feminist). I think the band and particularly Hayley have been watched more critically than plenty of others simply because of the presence of a frontwoman. I can't think of many other bands that have had more "Is (s)he or isn't (s)he going solo?" or "this isn't [punk/emo/pop-punk/whatever] anymore, they sold out!" thrown their way. Throw on top of that the constant line-up changes (which appear to be more complex issues than some fans I've met are willing to consider), Hayley getting flack any time she contributes guest vocals for a more mainstream act like B.O.B. or Zed (despite her contributions to mewithoutyou, Set Your Goals, New Found Glory, Say Anything, and more I'm not aware of). I know I'm using generalizations both of "the scene" (whatever that does or doesn't consist of) and fans, but I've seen a lot of posts about Hayley ruining the band on Facebook coming from people who were perfectly fine to accept the stylistic changes of All Time Low, Fallout Boy, and plenty of other male-fronted bands that I can't help but see as a little more than coincidental. I genuinely think that in twenty to thirty years, Hayley will be looked at as a sort-of modern day Joan Jett, but I think it's gonna be a rocky road getting there.

 

Listened to this album at least 15 times this weekend. It's very good.

 

While there are things I like about that review and I am glad it received a positive score there are things I really don't like about it as well

 

This is literally how I feel about every p4k review. There's plenty of decent takes within all that pretension, I just don't always have the energy to dig like that.

 

Can't forget her chariot feature. That was one of their best guest spots in a series of phenomenal guest spots.

 

Woke up with Rose-Colored Boy in my head. That song is a powerhouse.

 

me, on my deathbed: LOW KEY NO PRESSURE