We're all lowercase now, apparently.

Here’s a fact: Paramore vocalist Hayley Williams and I share a birthdate.  Not just a birthday, you understand, but an actual, proper, full-fucking-on birthdate.  I like to think we’re actually estranged twins and one day we’re going to meet, in some sort of hugely emotional embrace, and she’ll somehow imbue on me her power to become an incredibly famous musician by the time she was in her late teens.  Which, um, would actually be a little too late, thinking about it.

Anyway, the point is, here’s a woman in her early twenties whose band has already had a string of successful singles, two huge albums, and a third that’s very likely to reach the same level of stratospheric fandom.  And for the first time – the first proper time, at least – here’s a woman and a band and a record that absolutely deserves just that.

Rewind, then.  Paramore’s first record, All We Know Is Falling, was a fiesty little pop-punk record with plentiful aggression and huge promise for a stunningly angry red-haired teenage singer.  It was immature and a little naive, though, holding it back from enormous brilliance.  Next came 2007’s Riot!, which was the one to really propel the band into the limelight, here in the UK at least.  Driven by lead single Misery Business, it was a more finely crafted, carefully produced record, but the songwriting had edged away from the angry punk niceness and into the realms of – dare we say the horrible word? – emo…

And now, thankfully, Paramore seem to have absolutely cracked the formula that made them so almost-brilliant since their inception.  It’s still whiney to the extreme at times, but on far more occasions it’s a masterful display of controlled anger.  And even then, the band finds time to drop out into a couple of subdued numbers, including – incredibly – an acoustic track.  Less impressively, it’s one of the album’s weaker moments.

This is Paramore after their Left 4 Dead tournament. They had a Left 4 Dead tournament. Are you not totally sold?

But what really shines is how finely tuned the band’s songwriting has become.  This is pristine aggro-pop.  There’s an added complexity to the musicianship, which alone is worth the asking price.  But the construction of each tune, filled with memorable melodies, inch-perfect pacing and real head-banging, foot-stomping statements of young, smug defiance.  Even in the actual structuring and performance of each song, totally disregarding the lyrics (mainly because I’ve paid precisely fuck all attention to them), has made a bold jump away from heart-on-sleeve angsting to complete, utter fuck-you.  It’s brilliant.

Poor the-rest-of-the-band, though: smart, just-a-little-bit-cute Williams has already completely stolen the limelight, and here’s she’s only likely to disappear further into the sky, heralded as some sort of teen-rocker heart-throb who can actually really fucking sing.  Seriously.  This woman has an absolute command over her voice these days, with astonishing power combined with wholly impressive precision throughout.  She can tone it down, too, though, and there are a few moments of delightful fragility.  Only a few, though, and it’s always a great moment when she’s back to screaming her little heart out – but it shows really bright things for Williams, who seems to have completely come into her own for this outing.  I’d say she’s a star in the making, but she’s totally already there.

And, y’know?  Fuck this guilty pleasure thing I’ve had going on for Paramore for the last couple of years.  There’s nothing guilty about this.  It’s passionate, clever and immensely enjoyable pop music.  Only a couple of isolated moments let it down – the last couple of tracks are decent but slightly forgettable, and the bonus track – Decode, from the Twighlight film – is Paramore straying way too far into Evanescence territory.  But bloody hell, this is good, man!  It’s an album I’m dead proud of liking, and one Paramore should absolutely be dead proud of themselves.  By far their brightest hour.