Paramore: After Laughter, Track by Track Review

Having been a Paramore fan for quite some time now, I was super excited to hear that P5 was coming out, and decided to interrupt my revision to listen to it in its entirety and review for your reading pleasure!

I must say that my reaction to this album is that it is not their best, but does have some very, very good songs on it, and as so many have said, fully marks their departure from pop punk 2007-ness, but it can be good to change and evolve a music style. Is this fresh? Arguably, yes, although I feel like I would have cut a couple of songs from this album that make it feel a little samey.

1. Hard Times
I love this song a lot, although it definitely took a few plays to grow on me, and I'll probably end up overplaying it to the point where I hate it! It's very catchy but I really like it, especially as an album opener. I think it also signals very much through the lyrics, the transition of the band up until this point.

2. Rose-Colored Boy
This is very funky, think The 1975's Love Me, or even some of the more upbeat songs from self-titled. I love the chorus, especially, and it follows nicely on from Hard Times.

3. Told You So
By this point on the album, I'm thinking that the last three songs have all sounded *quite* similar and I am hoping for a little diversity soon. Self-titled was so good because it was a beautiful mix of old and new Paramore, so I want to see more of that. I will say that I love the 'throw me in and pull me out again' section.

4. Forgiveness
Oooo I actually really like this. It shifts tempo into a slower and much sadder groove, juxtaposed with the peppy melody favoured of late, and it is something very pretty. I am noticing that a lot of the songs are only just around the 3-minute mark, which I think does work as it stops them sounding repetitive.

5. Fake Happy
Around 42 seconds, the shift into the sound of the rest of the album kicks in, but I was a little surprised up until then. Hayley sounds amazing, and I find the chorus a little reminiscent of Last Hope.

6. 26
Acoustic prettiness, not my favourite, but a welcome addition to the album

7. Pool
I'm not that keen on this song, and it's almost too vanilla for me to work out what I don't like about it. This is one of the ones I would have cut, like I was saying above :)

8. Grudges
I don't know how many more adjectives I can use for this album ahaha, but this is a nice, fairly middle of the (new) road song from the album. It's also very catchy, especially the final line from the chorus!

9. Caught in the middle
This is a good song, from the opening guitar melody, and then opening up into a bubbly chorus. I think this definitely is one of my favourites

10. Idle Worship
This had a surprising chorus that made it feel a little more old-Paramore, before simmering back into the verses. Not bad, not bad.

11. No Friend
This doesn't feature Hayley at all (unless she's playing an instrument) and I think does nicely as serving as an interlude of sorts. Not the sort of song to put in a playlist of its own, but not worth skipping on the album.

12. Tell Me How
When I heard the opening bar or so I thought it was turning in the direction of Still Into You, but it surprisingly didn't and moved into a beautiful piano led slower final track.