Paramore Run Riot! (Riot - Paramore)

Member Name: rleigh

Product:	Riot - Paramore
Date:	05/03/08 (86 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An excellent album from a powerful female fronted band.

Disadvantages: Not a fan of female vocals? Stay well away.

2004 was the year that Paramore formed, the year later they released their début album 'All We Know Is Falling' through Fueled By Ramen records, and then their second album 'Riot!' appeared on the scene in 2007. 'Riot!' was recorded in New Jersey with the producer David Bendeth, an eleven track offering of utmost excellence. Paramore have come a long way as a band in their few years and this has to be seen as in no small part down to their gifted front woman Hayley Williams. The female vocalist has a lot of power and emotion in her voice, she conveys these qualities with great eloquence when she sings making Paramore a true force to be reckoned with.

The album begins with 'For a Pessimist, I'm Pretty Optimistic', a great title for a track; that's for sure. It starts the album brilliantly, kicks it off with real heartfelt vigour and always it goes down well with me. Right from the opening guitar riff you know that this one is going to be something really rather special, and as the band progress their way through this one they certainly don't disappoint. It's a powerful opening for the album, right from the offset it grabs your full undivided attention; something it refuses to let go of for the full duration of the release. It is a hugely impressive starting point for the album, no less than an album of this calibre deeply deserves.

'Misery Business' is one track from this release that I certainly shan't be forgetting in a hurry. If Avril Lavigne had some power to her voice then this is how she would sound. The voice of Hayley Williams is not too dissimilar to that of Avril Lavigne I feel, the best comparison that I can make in fact; the only real difference is that when this woman sings you really feel as though what she is singing about truly means something to her. Hayley Williams puts across her vocals with real force, there is such great emotion contained within her voice and listening to her sing is therefore always a joy. 'Misery Business' is complete with an excellent guitar riff and real power to the music as well as to the voice of Hayley Williams, the track stands out on all accounts and truly does provide for an exceptional listening experience.

'Let the Flames Begin' is another greatly powerful track from this release. It has an excellent drum beat which drives through the heart of the track, the vocals of Hayley Williams come through well and in this track the band show a high level of professionalism. A soothing guitar riff intricately weaves its way through the course of the track and not one element of the music here lets the sound down in the slightest. It is true that much of this album is greatly beautiful in sound, but this one is particularly impressive and stands out with myself as being a key highlight from this release. 'Crushcrushcrush' is another highlight from this album and one that I simply can't go without mentioning. It is the chorus that makes this one so special, it's greatly effective and really hits home as Hayley Williams 'crushes' her way through it whilst being backed by a truly phenomenal guitar lick.

All good things must eventually come to an end, 'Riot!' doing so with the track 'Born for This'. Much like its introductory track, the closing track for 'Riot!' is hugely impressive and even features a certain Mr William Beckett of The Academy Is... providing a cameo vocal line of 'We want the airwaves back', a lyrical poach from the Refused track 'Liberation Frequency'. It rounds the album off well and ends things on a huge high for Paramore. This is without doubt one of the best tracks from the album, and ending with this one is in my opinion a master stroke. This is the kind of music I was born for, I was born for this and there is simply no denying the excellence of this track. One quite amusing point to raise about this track however is that when the band sing 'We don't want your headlines', it does in fact sound like they are proclaiming 'We don't want your head lice', the first time I listened to this track I had to listen quite carefully before realising that the band hadn't really written a song about their quest not to get nits.

'Riot!' is a superb second album from Paramore, they certainly don't disappoint here, quite the opposite in fact. It is an excellent album from the band and one that shows them to be exceptionally talented at what they do, Paramore are a brilliant band and in this album show exactly what they are capable of. When this band first came about with their début album they were all so incredibly young, three years on and they're still quite young but incredibly experienced and proficient in the sound that they are producing. This band seem to know exactly what they want to achieve with their music and do so with apparent ease, they make it all seem so effortless and yet you know that much time and effort must have gone into the writing and recording of this album as it is just so brilliant. This band have an incredibly bright future ahead of them, and if they can continue to produce music of this sort of quality for the foreseeable future then the only way is up for them. Paramore will probably never be huge, but they could and perhaps should be.

Summary: Paramore's 'Riot' is well worth listening to, a brilliant album from the band.