Hayley Williams’ Flower Power
The emo-pop artist makes a bold feminist statement on her solo debut
Paramore’s lead singer makes a bold feminist statement on her solo debut, Petals for Armor — a journey through seething rage, revelation, and, eventually, new romance.
As the LeAd singer of emo-metal powerhouse Paramore, Hayley Williams has been delivering quirky bombast since she was a teenager — whether that has meant belting Christianity-inscribed lyrics on the Tennessee band’s early releases, wielding a carrot-shaped mic onstage at the Warped Tour (with flaming-orange hair to match), or rendering the sugarcoated cynicism of Paramore’s biggest hit, “Ain’t It Fun,” as if it were a gospel reverie. All the while, she’s piloted Paramore’s evolution from emo figureheads to poprock mainstays.
Since the last Paramore
LP, 2017’s After Laughter, Williams has experienced a divorce and checked herself into an intensive therapeutic retreat. Now, she’s emerged with her solo debut. Released as a trilogy of EPs over the course of this spring, Petals for Armor explores her changing coping mechanisms in the midst of hardship.
Her path leads through seething rage, revelation, and, eventually, new romance. “It’s cruel to tame a thing that don’t know its strength,” Williams sings, advising herself more than anyone. Though her bandmates are on hand, their presence is hardly felt. This is her journey to take.
Sonically, there are hints of the disco-funk grooves Paramore explored on After Laughter, which set Williams’ musings on anxiety and depression against a twinkling Eighties pastiche. But where that album was a geyser of anthemic emotionalism, Petals for Armor keeps its moodiness just below the surface. It’s murkier, more eclectic, and much less predictable, with influences as diverse as Janet Jackson, house music, and Björk. On the album’s first track and lead single, “Simmer,” Williams surrounds herself with plucked guitar strings, jazzy bass lines, and fidgeting drums. When she does unleash, her voice cuts through the sparseness, whether during the unhinged mania of “Dead Horse,” or the Solange-esque chorus of “Over It.”
Part of why the LP feels so singularly her own comes from its other main theme, femininity. Floral imagery abounds, as do other signifiers of domesticity: spices, sugar, soft animals, the occasional dance party. “I am in a garden/Tending to my own/So what do I care/ And what do you care, if I grow?” she asks on “Roses/ Lotus/Violet/Iris,” a healing balm of a song sung with all-woman indie supergroup Boygenius. Petals for Armor has a few redundant moments (there are only so many flower metaphors you can work into one record). But if growth is the object, Williams is budding toward some of her best music yet.