The third album in four years from these young Tennessee rockers doesn’t break any new ground, but proves you don’t have to switch up your formula to keep the fans excited about your music. Getting a big boost from lead singer Hayley Williams’ appearance on Guitar Hero: World Tour, and two songs on the uber-popular Twilight soundtrack last year, Paramore played it smart and stuck to what worked for them in the past.
Perhaps a little more mature and grown up from the last two albums, which were recorded when the orange haired front-girl Hayley was still in her teens, Brand New Eyes finds her and the rest of the band a lot more comfortable in their niche. More rock than Avril Lavigne or Kelly Clarkson, and full of youthful energy, the band has fused into a powerhouse to be reckoned with in the music world, translating to huge record sales and a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist in 2008.
Brand New Eyes’ subject material gets a little heavier than the past, running the gamut of judgment by others, questioning faith, and success as a band. Even though they are not a “Christian Band,” they are another a band of professing Christians who don’t want to be pigeon-holed into a specific genre.
This album saw fewer positive lyrics than the past, but a lot more faith-searching as seen in songs like “Turn It Off,” in which Hayley sings, “I scraped my knees while I was praying and found a demon in my safest haven. Seems like its getting harder to believe in anything and just to get lost in all my selfish thoughts.” At just twenty years old, Hayley Williams seems to be at the point of finding out what exactly she believes and making it her own. We all know it’s a tough spot to be in, but coming through it produces perseverance and ultimately hope (Romans 5:4).
The front half of the album is loaded with modern, radio-friendly rock tracks: from the first single “Ignorance” that takes a page right out of a Green Day album (and the same producer), to the hard hitting “Brick by Boring Brick” which looks to be their follow-up single. “Playing God” splits the two songs with an anti-judgment anthem that warns “next time you point a finger, I’ll point you to a mirror” and is very reminiscent of the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7, where He speaks of the dangers of looking for sawdust. A few slow songs are sprinkled into the mix this time around with “The Only Exception” and “Misguided Ghosts.”
The first mourns a disbelief in love as demonstrated by fighting parents, but beginning to believe again, and the second is a darker, more somber look at life and its appearance of meaninglessness at times. The album closes with the powerful screaming chorus of “All I Wanted” and all the emotion of a love lost.
This album will continue to do amazingly well and we’ll see big things from the quartet as long as they stay strong and don’t burn out too young.
