When the zipped-up hooks falter, though, Williams can seem gauche, especially for someone approaching 30. “Could it be that I’ve changed-or did you?” At this, someone yells “woo!”-or maybe “whew!”-and the whole band tumbles into the chorus.
“Are you recounting all my faults and are you racking your brain just to find them all,” she sings, peeling apart the fissures of friendship. Music meets message more directly on album highlight “Grudges,” where Williams details her reunion with drummer Zac. On “Forgiveness,” Williams doesn’t offer any, but the song’s lilting Graceland guitars hint at the possibility of a reprieve in the future “Pool” finds Williams drowning under a wave while the track’s jangling sparkle pulls her above the surface. Instead of going to war with Williams’ words, the music acts as a gleaming counterpoint, a nostalgic lifeline from one friend to another. The current members of Paramore barely lived through the ’80s, and for them the decade represents something of an idyll-a time of neon colors and easy rhythms and feel-good fables like The Goonies. On After Laughter, York focuses his inspirations the styles of 1980s rock and pop, conjuring a slicked-back take on fixtures like Talking Heads, Paul Simon, and the Bangles. All these comings and goings might seem trivial in relation to Williams’ supernova star power, but the drama has always fueled her songwriting, as well as the band’s sound, to an outsized degree. After Farro’s departure, guitarist Taylor York took over the musical heavy lifting on 2013’s Paramore, on which the group searched for a new identity, touching on post-rock bombast, string-laden balladry, and the funk-pop of their biggest hit yet, “Ain’t It Fun.” Since then, longtime bassist Jeremy Davis left amid a dispute over songwriting credits (he and the group recently settled a lawsuit) while former drummer Zac Farro, Josh’s brother, returns after six years.
When former guitarist Josh Farro was leading the musical charge for their first three albums, his ominous, distorted anthems propelled Williams’ angst as she screamed into the void like a heavy-metal hellion, albeit one informed by a pious Christian faith on 2009’s Brand New Eyes, which chronicled Farro and Williams’ real-life breakup, the instrumentation and the vocals each fought to tell their side, making for a glorious explosion. This extreme yin-yang quality is somewhat new for them. But just as this album highlights Williams’ most existentially despondent musings to date, it is also the most fizzy record Paramore have ever recorded. So, after years of merrily keeping the Paramore lights on, the 28-year-old singer and lyricist considers her life and lets go of her grin on After Laughter. Though past members of the Nashville group have quit, whining about their second-fiddle status, you could argue that, by sticking to the idea of being in a rock band with her best friends-not exactly the most au courant concept in an era of ProTools pop-it’s Williams who has made the biggest sacrifice. Paramore have had enough tabloid-baiting personnel switches to warrant one of those color-coded timelines on the band’s Wikipedia page-because the truth is as long as they have existed, there have been whispers about Williams breaking away as a solo star. When she flashes her teeth here, it looks more like a rictus of madness than a sign of genuine pleasure, a wary smile from the rock’n’roll ride Williams has gone through. The clip begins with Williams climbing out of a car that’s crashed onto a stage set decorated with cotton-ball clouds, wearing an unsure look: How did I get here? Soon enough, a microphone is put in front of her, and she starts to sing and dance to a bright new-wave bop.
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