By Patrick Campbell

Released April 4th, 2013 - Warner Music

After a nearly four year long hiatus, losing two of the founding members of the band, and huge amounts of speculation, Paramore have finally released their fourth studio album. The self-titled work marks a change in the sound of the band, although they do stick to their roots, there is a lot of experimentation on the album which sets it apart from the bands past work.

Being seventeen tracks long and even with three of those being little over a minute long, it still passes the one hour mark. In these days where most artists manage to get away with throwing ten songs onto a forty minute disc, it can be very hard to keep a listener entertained for that long. That's the one problem that I had with this album; all the songs are good and there are a few standout tracks, but it's too long. If you are going to make an album this long, every song has to be something special and different from the last, and with this that just doesn't happen. By the last song I was ready for it to be over.

The two standout tracks for me are Ain't It Fun, and the albums second single Still Into You. Ain't It Fun is a huge mix of different styles, in the verse you could almost believe that it was just Hayley Williams featuring on a Chris Zane produced Passion Pit hit. In the chorus it goes back to the bands deep rock roots, but in the bridge they bring in a gospel choir, and by the end all three are intertwined and it really works. Still Into You is a unusual song for the band, whether it is the lack of a heavy guitar riff or the unusual song topic, it's a bit weird for Paramore. But I really like this song, it's fun and quirky, and the accompanying video represents that as well. If the whole album was like these two songs it would be brilliant.
The major let down on the album is the final song Future. It's boring, and unnecessarily long, at nearly eight minutes it's almost a short musical. The song seems to finish after five and a half minutes of mindless drum bashing, but after fifteen seconds of silence they start it up again for another two minutes. It's pointless, boring, and it doesn't leave any impression on the listener of things to come. It just leaves you sitting there thinking "That was weird..."

Apart from the huge length, the album is pretty good. There are parts where it could definitely improve, but I did really enjoy it, and there are hints of a new exciting sound that Paramore could bring out in their new album which they are already working on.This album is good because the band has managed to stay true to themselves which is becoming harder and harder. I would recommend you buy this album, and get along to their tour if they make it to a town near you.

3.5 / 5