Paramore(album review) ***

Paramore’s self-titled fourth studio album follows up Brand New Eyes(2009) with a new, glistening, electronic pop sound.

After the acrimonious departure of key musicians Josh and Zac Farro, Paramore have carried on in a different musical direction. Although their new sound is not desperately confounding or earth-shatteringly radical, it does possess a certain amount of proficiency and charisma.

Paramore have always been an interesting band as they have a remarkable ability to just churn out intoxicatingly catchy singles whilst still remaining curiously strange, awkward and subversive. This offbeat quality that they possess in their career must be praised and equally the reinvention of the sound onParamore must also be acknowledged.

Although this album has a shiny, windex-sterility to the production - there are great moments such as Proof, Grow Up and Fast In My Car which are still enamoured with Paramore’s refreshingly youthful, yet undeniably pugilistic punk attitude. On the other hand Daydreaming and Last Hope interrogate the band’s more stirring, wistful and introspective style.  Ain’t It Fun is awesomely elating with its 80s pop sensibilities and Style Council-esque use of gospel choirs that have been panned in almost every review I’ve read. But conversely, as someone who has a strange affection for slightly dubious 80s keyboard sounds and nonsensical choir outros –Ain’t It Fun is probably the best track on the album.

However, Paramore is not an album graced with great depth or creativity, and with this arrives the duller, more complacent moments on the record. Ankelbiters is grating and annoying but it is over quickly, whereas Part II (a bizarre reprise of Let the Flames Begin from RIOT!) is a pretty worthless reimagining of a great song and utterly out of kilter with the rest of the album. The sporadic interlude tracks also bag-down an already overladen album that needs to be cut down to a disciplined ten or twelve song tracklist. Yet, Paramore is by no means a hateful or entirely pointless effort; often the more straightforward euphoric pop moments are underpinned with melancholic lyrical content and subsequently - the album is the most engaging in its quieter moments. One of these low-key moments include Hate to See Your Heart Break which is almost on the cusp of being saccharine, but never overplays its delicate sentiments.

Although the album is a very mixed bag and may trouble the fans of Paramore’s earlier alt-rock sound, the band have demonstrated an ability to reimagine their identity as an efficacious, if rather flawed, pop act.