Photo Credit: Zachary Gray
The best, most beloved Paramore songs managed to meet listeners where they were and capture their collective feelings like lightning in a bottle. The snarling “Misery Business” captured desire in its most intense, brattiest, most unreasonable, most teenage form, while the lilting “The Only Exception” captured the ecstasy and anxiety of falling in love for the first time. The deceptively peppy “Ain’t It Fun,” meanwhile, captured the weight of newfound adult responsibilities and independence. Nearly six years removed from their last album, and nearly two decades removed from their debut, the legendary pop-punk band attempt to meet their now-older fanbase where they are, once again – with interpersonal drama largely replaced by world-weariness and existential dread.
The opener, and lead single, “This is Why” jitters with the same sort of pandemic-induced agoraphobia as Hayley Williams’ solo 2020 singles, “Simmer” and “Cinnamon.” The sound of the chorus signals catharsis as the skeletal mix bursts into anthemic rock, but the lyrics evade resolve, as Williams cries, “This is why I don’t leave the house! // You say the coast is clear // But you won’t catch me out!” “Running Out of Time,” meanwhile, captures more subdued chaos – of time mismanagement, of deadlines missed and of personal goals left unachieved.
“C’est Comme Ca” is an often delightful but ultimately awkward fusion of New Wave Punk and sprechgesang delivery, captures the all too relatable duality of leaving the pandemic with a renewed urge to better yourself while also finding yourself bogged down by new – or at least heightened – traumas and neuroses. The chorus – which is all “na na na’s” and repetitions of the titular phrase – is underbaked, but there’s something to be said for the contrast between the chorus’s rushed, bratty delivery and the deadpan verses that detail a social life reduced to “a chiropractic appointment.”
Inspired by Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm and Sleater-Kinney’s One Beat in equal measure, “The News” is the most effective showcase of the band’s new socio-political post-punk direction. Though the song’s political takes are hardly novel, the driving guitars, the pointed vocal delivery from Williams, the panicky delivery of “shut your eyes, but it won’t go away!” and the compressed mix, all expertly replicate the feelings of helplessness and horror that any and all compassionate people following current affairs in 2023 feel. Like the best Paramore songs, it captures lightning in a bottle – creating an anthem for an entire generation. It is a eulogy for a better, imagined world that now feels out of reach.
After an exhilarating, exhausting first four-track run, This is Why necessarily slows down – taking inspiration from dream pop and shoegaze as much as it does post-punk. “Big Man, Little Dignity” resets the album’s pace, with soft vocals, a slow build, and a somewhat anticlimactic chorus. There’s something inexplicably disconcerting about the song and even without the sharp-edged sound of the preceding four tracks, Williams’ voice alone is an effective transmitter of anger – demonstrated best when she snarls at the protagonist, “You keep your head high, smooth operator in a shit-stained suit.” Without the sonic boldness of the first four tracks, This Is Why’s occasional shortcomings become more obvious in the album’s second half. “You First,” for instance, reaches for the sort of anthemic pop-punk chorus of the band’s early hits, but its blanket declarations about how “everyone is a bad guy” and its cliché’s about “karma” result in disappointment.
The most promising signs of growth for the band arrive in the form of the closer “Thick Skull” – a dreamy, lyrically evocative number that slowly, continually builds, and stretches the limits of traditional pop song structures. It’s rich with metaphors about getting older and feeling frustrated by not outgrowing the challenges of yesteryear (“Only I know where all the bodies are buried // Thought by now I’d find ‘em just a little less scary”). It’s unlike anything the band has previously created, and it serves as a reminder of the band’s constant evolution, and how that has given them the longevity that so few of their 2000s peers enjoy.
Leave a Reply