Album Review: Paramore, ‘This Is Why’

At the tail end of 2022, Paramore unleashed the lead single and title track from their first studio album in five years. For a band that has achieved the insurmountable feat of thriving in both the original punk-pop scene and the subgenre’s early-2020s revival, time is paramount to the Paramore brand. From their 2005 debut LP to the moody self-reflection of this year’s This Is Why, time — its passage, restrictive potential, and its capacity for progress and hope — grounds a significant part of the band’s artistic ethos. How do people grow and evolve as time passes? How do their interactions with and understandings of the world change as time progresses? How do you reflect on the past without getting wrapped in a quilt of deceptive nostalgia? With This Is Why, Paramore explores all of these questions while folding in the sounds of each of their formal studio albums to craft one of the strongest records of the year so far.

Serving as their first post-pandemic album (as well as their last album through their original Atlantic Records deal), This Is Why begins with its title track, an exuberant declaration of intentional solitude in the face of a hellish outside world. “This is why I don't leave the house / You say the coast is clear / But you won't catch me out,” Hayley chant-sings on the chorus. Like any citizen of the world that’s even remotely attentive, Hayley and her bandmates know that the coast is not clear of the incessant overstimulation of modern living. Both unlimited access to information and a heightened state of awareness of global happenings have resulted in a transformation of what living looks like. “The News,” the album’s second pre-release single, strikes the rare balance of technically being a political song without feeling preachy or insipid. When Hayley sings “Every second, our collective heart breaks / All together, every single head shakes / Shut your eyes, but it won't go away,” she isn’t just lamenting the state of things, she’s musically reconstructing the droning trauma that is existing as a human being in 2023. On “Running Out of Time,” a funky, matured version of the new wave stylings of After Laughter, Hayley utilizes a cavalier vocal delivery to wax poetic about her poor time management skills. Her absentmindedness constantly causes her to run out of time, but as the French say, “C’est Comme Ça.” Sonically similar to “Running Out of Time,” “C’est Comme Ça” finds the band dipping into their Talking Heads bag for a grittier take on new wave.

Now nearly two decades and six albums into their career, This Is Why finds Paramore at their most balanced and well-oiled; the band has never sounded as in tune with one another as they do on this record. “You First,” a warm embrace of the inherent paradox of humanity, is a standout song. Hayley’s bombastic belts ferociously crash into Zac’s rollicking drums across the brooding track. It is “Figure 8,” however, where Zac truly impresses. Equal parts foreboding and cathartic, the drum arrangement in “Figure 8” is an apt musical embodiment of the helplessness and restricted mobility at the center of toxic relationships. Guitarist Taylor York finds his spotlight on “Liar.” While “This Is Why” and “Running Out of Time” are flashier performances, the tenderness of his playing on “Liar” paired with Hayley’s twinkling vocalizations makes for an undeniable highlight.

For all of their ruminations on time, Paramore pulls off such a remarkable effort in This Is Why because of their refusal to be crystallized in a singular time period. Even though the album’s sound is still firmly entrenched in the pop-punk of their early years, their desire to push into other sonic spaces they hold dear (like the shoegaze-influenced “Thick Skull”) ensures their freshness and necessity. There is no other pop-rock band at Paramore’s level of mainstream success that is consistently making not just good music, but music that both reflects the times and progresses their overall artistry.

Vote for Paramore at the 2023 Bulletin Awards.

Key Tracks: “Crave” | “Figure 8” | “Liar” | “Running Out of Time”

Score: 82