Paramore - After Laughter (2017)
Ah, nothing can ever just be -right- in Paramore I guess. Bassist Jeremy Davis left right before the first album ("All We Know is Falling") and a good portion of that album's lyrics had to do with him. Well, jump on over to 2017 and he's out of the band and also a huge source of lyrical inspiration for -THIS- album as well! Along with the ever-changing Paramore line-up is the return of previous drummer Zac Farro, leaving them as they were before: A trio with one studio-exclusive member, ala Ilan Rubin on the last album, but now his role as "the guy who'll record with us but doesn't want to be known as being in Paramore" has been replaced by producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen on bass (who also produced the previous album), and the whole "let's play around with a bunch of genres!" thing from the 2013 self-titled is mostly forgotten, as the band moves towards 1980s pop music, much like Taylor Swift did in 2014 with "1989", Carly Rae Jepsen did in 2015-2016 with "E·MO·TION" and its bonus EP "E·MO·TION: Side B", and now it's 2017, almost three years after its initial kick-off with Taylor Swift, Paramore has decided to take their chance at stealing the crown for "best 1980s-influenced pop album of 2017" before anyone else can, with good but questionable results.
Alright, how's 'bout this: For the first time in their career, vocalist Hayley Williams has not had orange or red hair for the release of a studio album. Well, maybe there was something magical about that orange/red hair, because something's a bit wrong on this release, and before I get into ranting about the songs, allow me to rant about something else: When you try to make an album that takes massive influence from 1980s pop, you have to really nail everything perfectly, I mean you gotta REALLY try to make me feel like I'm snorting cocaine in the bathroom of a night club that looks similar to some shit you'd see in "Scarface" as beautiful women dance with each other, because girls just want to have fun, but here's the thing: We've already heard this sound consistently in the mainstream for almost three years now. In an attempt to make an album that sounds timeless, to where it could be played in the 1980s or now, it'll end up sounding like "that time Paramore did that 1980s pop album" five years from now, cementing it a bit into a trend, almost as if they released a dubstep remix album back in 2011. It's not a good look for a band that's always changing, because at least when they changed, you could see where it was coming from, and it wouldn't really be influenced by a new massive trend in sound, because we know there was nothing like their 2013 self-titled on the radio, it just sounded like each song could've been a hit on different stations. I don't really get that feeling with this. I feel like this is playing it a bit too safe with trying to remain in the boundaries of one specific, clean-cut sound, which Paramore never really did before, even on the albums that they made as teenagers.
Hayley Williams sounds as great as ever (I could listen to her sing the phone book for hours) with that huge, gorgeous voice never ceasing to entertain, although I do feel like she's a little restrained on this album vocally, and all of the songs on here are all catchy to a degree, some I especially like being "Rose-Colored Boy", "Pool" and "Caught in the Middle", but aside from the mix-up of the last two tracks on the album's tracklisting, everything on here is pretty predictable and the songs end up sounding a bit -too- similar due to the production style on here being very consistent in style while also having a CLEAR AS FUCK mix to go with it, but there aren't too many moments on here that stand out instrumentally, with so many moments seeming to just be Hayley Williams singing over a bassline with basic drums and little guitar fuckery hidden in the background, since the main thing dragging each song along is the bass and Hayley Williams' vocals, because Taylor York's guitar contributions are so small to the overall sound this time around, and Zac Farro might as well have been a fucking drum machine since he never really shows any of his signature Zac Farro flair, it makes you wonder why they ditched Ilan Rubin for getting a pop-punk drummer instead, and then not allow him to play pop-punk or anything above basic drum beats. When you combine this all with the bass being mostly played with a pick as opposed to Jeremy Davis style of mostly not using a pick when playing more bass-oriented music, making the basslines on here sound much more percussive than a lot of people (read: probably only me) would expect, which sucks because this is easily Paramore's most funky album when it comes to bass, but they just lost a funky-ass bass player who likely would've made this shit flow even better, and I get it, bands and people change, but it's especially evident on this album just how vital Jeremy Davis on bass was to their sound, even if the bass on this album isn't bad at all, it's just different than what you're probably used to hearing on a Paramore album.
Overall, despite my horrid ranting about the bass, drums, and whatever else, I think there's some good stuff on here to justify listening to it in full, but even compared to their 2005 debut "All We Know is Falling" it feels a bit too basic and gives me a real "made for radio" vibe. To me, there's no -punch- to any of these songs, and ultimately everything comes down not necessarily to how much you like Paramore, but if you're able to dismiss the idea that this is a Paramore album and just see it as a collection of good-but-disposable radio fodder that was made in an attempt to emulate the 1980s because.. Why the fuck not? Everyone else is doing it! Soon you won't be able to hear a single modern pop song on the radio that doesn't have heavy amounts of reverb absolutely caking a snare drum, leaving the sound of air leaving the drum lingering in the music, over and over again until Carly Rae Jepsen's "E·MO·TION" becomes "just another fucking pop album" and Meghan Trainor dropped the best 1980s pop album of 2017. You'd think that after all of their time in the emo scene, Paramore would've figured out that it's best for them not to jump bandwagons, especially if it'll just make their music seem even more dated than it is, but hey, it's whatever, I guess. Fun album, but disappointing that it's from Paramore and not some trendy-but-talented 20 year olds on Bandcamp.
7/10
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