ThunderBolt Magazine by Tiago Fernandes

MAGAZINE

fall in love with PARAMORE

FEBRUARY 2010 MONTHLY EDITION 2,50€ + DVD

THUNDER B LT

THUNDERBOLT //

february

2010

INDEX

3 // EDITORIAL 4 // INTERVIEW

7 // ALBUMS

8 // PHOTOGRAPHY

3 EDITORIAL

Post Hardcore

When it comes to defining a subgenre of punk, posthardcore is really not much more than a vague catchall, set up to encompass any band that has taken their musical roots from hardcore, but expanded their sound. Post-hardcore really began in the ‘80s, with the actual hardcore bands themselves. As bands like Black Flag began to bore with the formulaic constraints of hardcore, more experimental sounds began to appear in their music. Just as when the Clash broke away from traditional punk rock by adding elements of reggae to their music, hardcore bands were adding elements of jazz, noise rock, prog rock and math rock to their sounds. Additionally, this era saw Rites of Spring, often considered the earliest incarnation of emo, another subgenre that gets lumped in with post-hardcore. The ‘90s saw emo begin to rise to prominence, with experimental bands like Hot Water Music and At The Drive-In. At the same time, the waters of post-hardcore were getting even muddier as a sound description, as bands like Fugazi and Glassjaw, who added whatever they liked, were also drawing from hardcore influences and doing things that were even more withdrawn from traditional hardcore punk. Nowadays, post-hardcore is even more vague. Denoting a band a post-hardcore does little to describe their sound at all. Post-hardcore can now refer to bands that are emo, screamo, experimental or even pop punk, as long as elements of the heavier roots of hardcore are present in their music. (example, all emo is post-hardcore, but not all posthardcore is emo.) Many of punk’s most popular bands today can be called post-hardcore, but while they share many of the same influences, and often the same penchant for screams,

our definition

the definition of post-hardcore as a sound is getting less and less definitive by the day. Post-hardcore is a music genre that evolved from hardcore punk. Like post-punk, post-hardcore is a term for a broad constellation of groups who emerged from the hardcore punk scene, or took inspiration from hardcore, while concerning themselves with a wider palette of expression, closer to experimental rock. The genre took shape in the mid 1980s with releases from the Midwestern United States. These included bands on SST Records, and bands from Washington, D.C. such as Fugazi (see the era’s releases on Dischord Records, for example), as well as slightly different sounding groups such as Big Black and Jawbox that stuck closer to the noise rock roots of post-hardcore. Post-hardcore is typically characterized by its precise rhythms and loud guitar-based instrumentation accompanied by a combination of clean vocals and screams. Allmusic states, “These newer bands, termed posthardcore, often found complex and dynamic ways of blowing off steam that generally went outside the strict hardcore realm of ‘loud fast rules’.Many of these bands’ vocalists were just as likely to deliver their lyrics with a whispered croon as they were a maniacal yelp.” The genre has developed a balance of dissonance and melody, in part channeling the loud and fast hardcore ethos into more measured, subtle forms of tension and release. Jeff Terich of Treblezine states, “Instead of sticking to rigid constraints, these artists expanded beyond power chords and gang vocals, incorporating more creative outlets for punk rock energy.” editorial by: thunderbolt magazine

THUNDERBOLT //

brand new Hayley Williams and the rest of the Paramore band members present the new album Brand New Eyes exclusively. The album is out on September 25th.

INTERVIEW

eyes

Hayley Williams (lead vocals) New song “Careful” off Paramore’s third studio album Brand New Eyes received an introduction from Williams that “Just because I have a mic stand, does not mean this song is slow.” Another new track “Where The Lines Overlap” had Williams informing fans that “This next song is about how awesome I think life is with these guys right now.” The recently turned platinum blonde frontwoman was of course talking about her four bandmates. This particular track may just be our favorite selection off Brand New Eyes.

“Where The Lines Overlap” also proved to be the one song that made guitarist Josh Farro smile on stage. We are not kidding here people. We noticed that not once did Josh crack even a remote semblance of a smile on stage. However, that was until the performance of what we consider to be the most honest, grateful, thankful, and optimistic musical composition Paramore has written to date. Although the other album’s songs are pretty awesome, their new one Brand New Eyes has a lot of enjoyable songs.

Taylor York (rhythm guitar) As expected, Twilight fans freaked out when lead guitarist Farro began playing the first two notes of “Decode.” If you didn’t know already, they contributed a song to the original motion picture soundtrack to the blockbuster hit film Twilight. The final song “Outro” before Paramore’s encore had Williams down on her knees front and center in front of the 1,400 people lucky enough to get into the sold out show this past Saturday in Chicago. “Misguided Ghosts” kicked off the grand

finale three-song encore with guitarist Farro, bassist Jeremy Davis, and Williams sitting themselves down at the edge of the stage. The three band members were then two feet away from front row fans clinging for dear life to the barricade. Keeping with the original version of the Brand New Eyes track, “Misguided Ghosts” was performed acoustic at Chicago’s House of Blues. Truth be told, this was the most intimate musical scenario we have seen Paramore in since August 2006. That

being when we were one of about 30 kids watching the then foursome play an in-store appearance at the old Tower Records. “And just for the record, I might forget the words to it. It’s been known to happen,” announced Hayley when introducing “Misguided Ghosts.” After the campfire sing-along, Williams told the audience, “You sounded gorgeous!” Josh Farro (lead guitar, backing vocals) Following “Misery Business,” Williams remarked that “It’s date #2 on the

paramore at magazine photoshoot

THUNDERBOLT //

‘Brand New Eyes’ tour. Thank you for helping us kick it off right.” Leading into the last song of the night “Brick By Boring Brick,” Hayley let fans know that, “This next song is our new single. We just shot a video for it.” To my utter shock and disappointment, Paramore did not include “Pressure” in their set. What was up with that?! “Pressure” happens to be the one song that made us fall head over heels in love with this band back in June 2006. Upon hearing the song from beginning to end just once in my friend’s apartment, we were hooked. We then proceeded to spend the rest of the day playing “Pressure” on repeat, driving people crazy with our new obsession. We have since seen Paramore live in concert every time they have played in Chicago for the past three years and not once was “Pressure” not a part of the set. My heart broke a little when I first glanced at the set list before the band walked out on stage. I held out hope that at the last second, Paramore would break out an impromptu performance of the song, but no such luck. Before I knew it, the show was over and I didn’t get to sing my heart out to “Pressure” until losing my voice. Zac Farro (drums) “One time, we sold more records than Mariah Carey did,” drummer Zac Farro of Paramore proudly announced after performing new song “Turn It Off.” Before launching into the classic dance track “Here We Go Again,” Williams told fans, “We’re gonna play another old one for you.” The song is off the band’s debut album All We Know Is Falling and happens to be one of my personal favorites out of Paramore’s entire repertoire of music. Hearing the Franklin, Tennessee (near Nashville) fivesome play “Here We Go Again” live in concert is always a unique experience. This is because Paramore performs the song with an extended and/or alternate ending not heard on the original album recording. If you don’t know, or want to know, what I’m referring to, make sure you check out Paramore when they play a city near you on the ‘Brand New Eyes’ tour. It is great.

paramore popping gum balloons

Brand New Eyes By all accounts, Paramore should be our favorite band. They’re somewhere in our favorite genre, and all we listen to are female vocalists, and Hayley Williams has just the kind of voice we like. Unfortunately, we’ve never been able to get past Paramore’s songwriting weaknesses and fully enjoy their music. When we first previewed All We Know Is Falling, we played it non-stop for a few days. That’s the norm with us and new music, but the problem was that we couldn’t differentiate the tracks.

with Hayley saying, “We want the air waves back.” (While we appreciate the Refused reference, it still dragged the song down.) And so, Paramore’s flaws, to us at least, were the band’s musical limitations and Hayley’s lyrical shortcomings. Both of those problems are addressed on their latest album, brand new eyes. And while it’s not a perfect record, it’s way better than their previous efforts. At a loss for how to do this otherwise, we will break it down by track.

“The album was basically just one song - a great one, but nothing special. Still it was a great effort to put it together” We found ourself anticipating their sophomore album Riot! when they put the songs “Misery Business” and “Born For This” up for streaming on the FBR website. We really liked the former, and thought the latter was okay. However, we were disappointed when the album was finally released because none of the rest of the tracks held up to Misery Business’s fiery fury, and the musical interlude we liked most about the original Born For This was replaced

hayley williams paramore performance at chicago

latest

ALBUMS

AMON AMARTH Twilight Of The Thunder God

This band’s past three records have been in every year’s top 5 list rivaling whatever it was I had for my top pick that year. Great albums come and go, but great bands become legends, and Amon Amarth are, no doubt, living legends of the modern metal scene, and Twlight of the Thundergod is all but a pinpoint reference for all great about heavy metal.

SUICIDE SILENCE The Cleansing This album does have very good writing, great riffage make some of these songs very good. Unique vocals and solid drumming. The band is doing nothing new. They do get the formula right with a song, they do what they do very well.It’s not a horrible album. We recommend previewing before buying it to see if it’s your style. If not, you’re not missing anything at all.

AS I LAY DYING An Ocean Between Us The band spent the summer on the Sounds of the Underground metal hardcore tour. Soon after, Clint Norris left to pursue life as a family man and Josh Gilbert replaced him on bass. With the addition of Gilbert’s vocal harmonies, the band’s sound became more melodic, and in August 2007, the group released their fourth album, An Ocean Between Us.

BLESSTHEFALL Witness Blessthefall has hyped up the guitar work for this effort, leading to high fly fretwork, crushing epic build-up sections, and an overall technical release with both clarity and strength. “Witness” has helped the band take that huge leap into music that average listeners and elitists can both enjoy and listen to multiple times in the same day. This album is a great offer.

EYES SET TO KILL The World Outside The World Outside has elements of metalcore, post-hardcore and rock. The songs are melodic, but also have an edge. ESTK alternates male screaming vocals and female melodic singing. They are pretty evenly distributed, although the singing probably gets a bit more exposure. ”Deadly Weapons”, and the melodic singing is a nice change of pace.

BRING ME THE HORIZON

Suicide Season Fans will find more to love on here, others will decry Suicide Season as another cancer spot on their beloved music scene. The reality of course lies somewhere in between. Suicide Season is simply competent. It works where it has to, and even if its candysweet chugginess wares thin after a while, at least it sounds just about right in the first place.

PARAMORE Brand New Eyes You can see it in the pointed use of lower case lettering in the album title on the artwork, in the cruelly dismembered and mounted butterfly on the cover and in the tormented song titles – ‘Turn It Off’, ‘Ignorance’, ‘Playing God’. Paramore have not only grown up, but grown into a cynical bunch. Despite being largely invisible to the ‘serious’ music fan in your life, Paramore are, pre-teen by pre-teen, taking over the world.

bandgallery

PARAMORE SILVERSTEIN HOPES DIE LAST BLESSTHEFALL BRING ME THE HORIZON

THUNDERBOLT // PHOTOGRAPHY

A SKILITE DRIVE ALESANA THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA

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THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA ENTER SHIKARI BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE

11 PHOTOGRAPHY

UNDEROATH GREEN DAY CHIODOS FROM FIRST TO LAST