Petals For Armor
Hayley Williams’ *Petals for Armor* takes its name from an idea: “Being vulnerable,” she tells Apple Music, “is a shield. Because how else can you be a human that’s inevitably gonna fuck up, and trip in front of the world a million times?” On her first solo LP, the Paramore frontwoman submerges herself in feeling, following a period of intense personal struggle in the wake of 2017’s *After Laughter*. To listen start to finish is to take in the full arc of her journey, as she experienced it—from rage (“Simmer”) to loss (“Leave It Alone”) to shame (“Dead Horse”) to forgiveness (“Pure Love”) and calm (“Crystal Clear”). The music is just as mercurial: Williams smartly places the focus on her voice, lacing it through moody tangles of guitar and electronics that recall both Radiohead and Björk—whom she channels on the feminist meditation “Roses / Lotus / Violet / Iris”—then setting it free on the 21st-century funk reverie “Watch Me While I Bloom.” On the appropriately manic “Over Yet,” she bridges the distance between Trent Reznor and Walt Disney with—by her own description—“verses like early Nine Inch Nails, and choruses like *A Goofy Movie*.” It’s a good distance from the pop-punk of Paramore (bandmate Taylor York produced and Paramore touring member Joey Howard co-wrote as well), but a brave reintroduction to an artist we already thought we knew so well. “It was like a five- or six-month process of beating it out of myself,” she says of the writing process. “It felt like hammering steel.”
The Paramore singer’s debut solo album is emotionally vulnerable and musically ambitious, one that seeks catharsis and enlightenment in tangled corners of pop music.
Watching Williams tap into every side of her self-care journey, whether it invokes fear, unrest, curiosity, or newfound freedom, resonates more as a reintroduction than the return of a beloved vocalist.
Petals For Armor is Hayley Williams unpicking her stitches and baring all
After a decade of ups and downs with her acclaimed pop-punk band, the singer dissects grief, divorce and self-identity on her eclectic solo debut
It’s been 15 years since Hayley Williams first emerged as the poster girl of pop punk with Paramore, with a shock of red hair, fingerless gloves and a voice big enough to fill Donington Park.
On her solo debut, the Paramore singer takes listeners on a tumultuous path of un-learning trauma and re-learning what it…
Paramore frontwoman wrote her solo debut in the aftermath of divorce, depression and a PTSD diagnosis
Hayley Williams' artful and deeply personal solo debut, 2020's Petals for Armor, reportedly comes on the heels of a period of deep self-reflection for the longtime Paramore vocalist, and it shows.
Paramore's Hayley Williams makes her bold introduction as a solo artist with Petals for Armor, a refreshing pop album that started as therap...
Hayley Williams is no stranger to attention and the stresses that come with celebrity, rising to fame at a very young age while fronting zippy pop-rock band Paramore.
It’s pretty wild to consider that Paramore’s debut, ‘All We Know Is Falling,’ came out 15 years ago this summer. It’s safe
This solo debut from the frontwoman of pop-punk stadium stars Paramore is a riot of lust, funk and femininity
The album is a confident solo debut that suggests the singer has valences she’s just beginning to explore.
Hayley Williams - Petals for Armor review: "I don't know what it's gonna take to rid myself of the shame, but maybe it turns into something that helps me have compassion and not be in denial."
US R’n’B singer-songwriter Kehlani is turning lockdown positively steamy.
In the limelight since she was a teenager, Williams takes a breath and looks back on her life with clarity
Debut album from Paramore frontwoman is a funkin' great surprise. Review by Thomas H Green.