'PETALS FOR ARMOR' DISPLAYS HAYLEY WILLIAMS' TRANSFORMATION
Hayley Williams’ debut solo record is finally here and it’s unlike anything we’ve seen from Paramore, but she’s been through a lot in the last couple of years. As she’s made it very clear, this isn’t Paramore, it’s just Hayley by herself working through her depression, toxic relationship, and learning how to stand on her own two feet.
Part I
Petals For Armor is just Hayley Wiliams, but that's not to say that her Paramore bandmates were left out completely. Touring bassist Joey Howard, drummer Zac Farro, and guitarist Taylor York play on different tracks and even helped her write others.
The album cover showing her face and her covered up wedding tattoos (on her fingers were Chad’s initials) shows the statement that she is making, finding her own power within herself. The album opens with the first taste we were given of the record, “Simmer”. This is a fiesty, sort of slow-building track, but every lyric packs a punch and has words that stick out immediately.
“Rage is a quiet thing, you think that you tamed it but it’s just lying in wait”
Hayley sings this with a really slow beat behind her, whispering, because the emotions are so built up and need to be released. To fit the song, the video is eerily dark and haunting and displays the emotions. “Simmer” is also the first time we’ve heard Hayley swear in a song, and it’s about time because it really does help pack a punch. “Simmer” discusses how she pushed down her anger she thought she had dealt with toward her ex-husband when in reality it was really just hiding and would fester at other times.
Unlike other album releases where you get a few singles before the album is out, Hayley put out singles, but also pieces of her record for the audience to absorb as EP’s that sort of deal with different feelings. Part I contains “Simmer”, “Leave It Alone”, “Cinnamon”, “Creepin”, and “Sudden Desire”. This part deals with being lonely and alone in your house, like on “Cinnamon”; and the feelings she has toward herself, her former relationship, and her depression. The stand out tracks to Part I are “Simmer”, “Cinnamon”, and “Sudden Desire”. This entire part deals with her being alone for the first time in a long time, her anger toward her ex-husband, and being herself.
One of the stand out lyrics and self-realizations Hayley has in the second track, “Leave it Alone” is
“Now that I want to live, everyone around me is dying”
She’s finally found her light at the end of the tunnel of her well-documented, public battles with depression; and her elderly family is dying around her and she feels helpless. As a 20 something that has seen family die around me, it definitely strikes a chord.
The fifth track, “Sudden Desire”, deals with being with someone but feeling alone.
“Your fingerprints on my skin, a painful reminder / Don’t look at my eyes, I feel a sudden desire.”
This first EP was released in February and dealt with the dark emotions to match the winter.
Part II
Part II of the EP starts with “Dead Horse” which is a recent single, and the song starts with a voicemail to a friend with Hayley saying,
“Sorry it took me three days to send you this but sorry I was in a depression and I’m trying to come out of it now.”
The heavy lyrical themes are still present in the second act, but Williams begins to find her confidence and looks back at it with more self-assurance. “Dead Horse” deals with her relationship and how she held her breath for a decade. On the outside it seemed great, but it was curtling inside. This entire project lays out her soul for everyone to see the ugly, the worse, and the start to self-acceptance.
Another stand out track on Part II is “Roses/Lotus/Violet/Iris” which on the surface doesn’t sound like much, but Williams has said it is about women’s strength and beauty that should and can exist. This song features boygenius, which is composed of Phoebe Bridges, Julian Baker, and Lucy Dacus.
“And I will not compare other beauty to mine / And I will not become a thorn in my own side / And I will not return to where I once was / Well I can break through the earth, come up soft and wild.”
The positivity in this song is thought to be in response to her controversy with the Paramore song “Misery Business”, but even if it’s not the song is a good thought, especially for women in such an intrinsically misogynistic world.
On “Why We Ever”, Williams begins to separate herself from the emotions and darkness that weighed her down with a piano-driven mid-tempo track. This song flows very well into the Part III tracks that are much more upbeat and cutting ties with the dark emotions.
Part III
Part III can be considered Williams really coming into herself and standing on her own two feet despite the heartbreak, betrayal, pain, and depression she went through. The opening lyrics to the first song, “Pure Love” further display that.
“The opposite of love is fear / and I'm still trying to get used to how the former feels”
The next song, “Taken” is a different beat than the rest of the record but it fits this springtime flow. The repetitive lyrics in the beginning are interesting and seem to be from the time she was in the relationship, but with an outside perspective.
“If anybody’s asking I’m taken, if anybody wants to know he is too / Would I do it all again? / Oh yeah, in a second”
Given what we know about the situation it’s an interesting take, but it shows that she thought she had to go through all that toxicity and negativity to learn about herself and become a better version.
The bass-driven “Sugar In the Rim” sees Williams taking some fun risks on all kinds of sounds and samples. They build into a synth-driven ’80s-inspired song similar to songs on After Laughter, but the woman singing these words is very much different than she was then.
One thing about every song on this record, but especially this third part, is I’m so curious how this is going to translate live for her tour next year (Tour was slated to begin this spring coinciding with the release of the record but was pushed like a lot of others due to the ongoing health crisis).
My favorite track in Part III is “Watch Me While I Bloom”. This song finds Hayley shouting how she finally feels like herself again or is very much beginning to.
“I’m alive in spite of me / and I’m on the move”
This song is very much a loud, bouncy declaration of self-love, and finally accepting who she is and not having to pretend to be okay. The song is very dancy in nature, and rightfully so as she’s almost celebrating feeling like herself again.
The last song in Part III and on the record is aptly titled “Crystal Clear”. This song is an ethereal and atmospheric mid-tempo track that has Williams summing up the clarity of the journey she’s undertaken while looking for what comes next, looking forward to living again.
PETALS FOR ARMOR IS AVAILABLE NOW ON ALL STREAMING PLATFORMS AND ANYWHERE MUSIC IS SOLD.