Let’s face it, if you leave a massive band it can be hard to shake off the past. Ex-Paramore&r

Let’s face it, if you leave a massive band it can be hard to shake off the past. Ex-Paramore’s Josh Farro gives it a fair whack on ‘Walkways’, with a breezy kind of pop that firmly sidesteps his past guitar-driven pop punk frolics.

Closer ‘Home’ says it best: he’s “starting again, starting over”. While ‘Cliffs’ declares – and perhaps reassures – that you’ll make it out alive over a crowd-pleasing, pop-driven welcome, much of the album breezes by like the soundtracks for out-of-body experiences or fuzzy flashbacks on happy days from American TV shows, feeling far from a dangerous endeavour. The title-track has airs of throwing back to an earlier, beachy era, ‘Islands’ is mellow and almost haunting, where ‘Color Run’ is indie finery, one of the bigger ones nestled in there.

‘Walkways’ is an easy listen, more The Postal Service than Paramore, if anything. It soars, with a few real moments in there where you feel like Josh has really got into the swing in this new direction. It’s clean, it’s his life over the last few years sprinkled across the songs, it’s a fresh start. If this is his new chapter, it’s one you’d want to have a read of at the very least, especially when you’re needing a calming influence on hand. Heather McDaid

(source:Upset Magazine)