Reviewed by Tony Cummings

Some people call them "teen emo", some people call them "pop punk" but everyone calls them successful. Producer Rob Cavallo (who's worked with Green Day, among others) gives this chart topper a crisp, punchy sound while flame-haired front woman Hayley Williams has never sounded better. This is clearly an effort to make the album a more well rounded and mature product than 'Riot' and certainly the power ballads here are definitely stretching out Paramore's sound. Lyrically, the album is intriguing. Despite Q magazine's suggestion that it "sounds like an energised romp through the diary of a small town American gal - albeit one struggling to reconcile Christian views with the celebrity afforded by more than two million album sales", there are in fact few lyrics of a Christian nature here. The song "Careful" rather weirdly paraphrases Jesus with the words "the truth never set me free/So I'll do it myself" which doesn't sound too healthy. The only song that really does hint at the Christian life is "Turn It Off" with its incantation "I'm better off when I hit the bottom." Still, "Ignorance" deserves its success as a single while "Playing God" has a couple of great lines in "next time you point a finger/I'll point you to a mirror." The difficulty is that too many of the songs here seem to be directed at an immature young man in Williams' life. To quote from another review, this time from HM magazine, "As good as 'Brand New Eyes' can be, just wait 'til Hayley Williams begins to venture beyond her insular personal realm, and starts to see the wider world around her. That'll be the true eye-opener."

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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