mvm.

floating like a cannonballlllllll

Hello

It’s been 5.5 years since we released our last album. What’d we miss?

If within the last 5.5 years you’ve felt/experienced sensations of:

– Agoraphobia

– Righteous Rage

– Confused About The Difference Between Selfishness and Self-Preservation

– Disbelief At The Inconsistencies of The American-English Language

– American Psycho

– Revelation

– Nostalgia For Things You’ve Not Yet Experienced and Did Not Know You Even Wanted To

– Resignation

Then oh boy, do we have an album for you.

Paramore, via Facebook

This Is Why is not just a reconfiguration of the bands’ internal comms, dissecting their song-craft into what would make a great album: it’s also their first album in six years following After Laughter in 2017. For its acclaim, AL was not a polished album in its dexterity. Abolishing bubble-gum synth pop for a stirring of 00’s alt-rock interminable with the explosion of Brit-Pop, This is Why is a thirtysomething branding of angst. Above all else, it’s the non-plussed efforts of just stating for what it is; do you have enough to get through the musings of your adult life?

Influences of Bloc Party and early on-set Foals come to mind, which aren’t far off with what we’re left with. C’est Comme Ca is a perfect example of this, the use of off-kilter lyrics playing with the skittish Octopus-like riff from Bloc Party’s FOUR in 2012. Agitated drums and angular riff-age makes for an album very much influenced by the cathartics of “scratch” alt-rock, it seems the band just grew up, accepted their emotions and made a stark return to form, maturing with promise like an old cheese. Hayley is no stranger to displaying a coming-of-age to her music. For its “sheer misogyny” and inept attitude to feminism, Misery Business was scrapped in their live performances and only recently whacked it back in the set for their revival.

Just look at Running Out of Time and surprise sender Crave on the album;, it’s coming to a realisation that maybe your time on this Earth isn’t as limitless as you once thought. It even has a Bikini Bottom-esque bass intro on it. Crave swoops in Hayley’s honeyed vocals, as she pines for the feeling of shooting out such a song like Misery Business at a moments notice, almost like she’s pleading to do it all over again, “I can’t wait to memorise this day, oh a picture cannot contain, the way it feels / you say i live in the present, i’m already dreaming of how it begins / and trying to savour the moment but i know the feeling will come to an end.”

Elsewhere, we flock to hear the detrimental impact on 24-hour media outlets, with The News. At their most “Paramore” here – harking back to the days of 2013 self-titled – maybe this will be the teens abridged version of our Misery Business – as we howled at the infamous ‘man in the sky’. On this album, the vibrant energy is unmatched in frantic moments but slower moments show a flavoured edge of maturity to the band, now in their sixteenth year as a collective.

your subscription to redemption has been redeemed..

Of course, we don’t just see their traditional roots of straight-edged alt-rock and punk-rock decorated throughout, we also see spoon-feedings of a more esteemed funk flanking, that we first heard when they released magnetic This is Why, a catchy polyphonic departure into Soopasoul, aswell as Figure 8 superseded by You First, a euphoric bop into the problematic workings-out of self-pleasure.

They may be impeached for floating above the clouds for many a-song with some putting on a front, but you cannot argue the lengths the band have undertook with their time off. It’s not been sat twiddling their thumbs, that’s for sure. It’s mostly been Hayley’s solo efforts that’s keeping the flag waving, but still.

Spurred on with the prospect of being out of the game for so long – and the bitter departure of seedy bassist Jeremy Davis (yikes)- Paramore are on the road to better things. And This Is Why is exactly… why. First stop: a music redemption.