Paramore - Brand New Eyes

Careful - 4
Ignorance - 3
Playing God - 3
Brick By Boring Brick - 3
Turn It Off - 3
The Only Exception - 4
Feeling Sorry - 3
Looking Up - 3
Where The Lines Overlap - 3
Misguided Ghosts - 4
All I Wanted - 4
Decode (Twilight Soundtrack Version) - 3
Total - 40 stars / 12 tracks = 3.33 stars

Brand New Eyes starts off semi-strongly. "Careful" is an energetic, enjoyable track, that nonetheless shows hints of the lyrical weakness that permeates most of the 3-star tracks on the album. During these low points, Paramore sounds less like their Riot!-era selves, and more like Fall Out Boy, with plaintive, selfish content.

Things start to pick up with "The Only Exception." It's not perfect, with a repetitive, not completely un-irritating chorus, but the change of tone, led by acoustic guitar, shows the band's ability to thrive in different styles.

Similarly, after some more of their standard screaming pop-rock, we get another slower, pretty song in "Misguided Ghosts." Without the lyrical shakiness of "The Only Exception," this song makes for an even better listening experience.

Lastly, "All I Wanted"'s escalating intensity makes up for its potentially mediocre lyrics. All in all, Paramore's most recent album has a few surprises, some good (like the different song styles), some bad (nearly all the lyrics), with it all generally coming out in the wash.