Hayley Williams Might Have Just Done Something
photo courtesy of @ekgillu Instagram
It looks like Hayley Williams is tired of carrying the entire genre of pop-punk on her shoulders...now, she’s moving on to conquer indie. After releasing her debut single “Simmer” on January 22, Williams announced her new album, “Petals For Armor” via social media. Us Jerks couldn’t be more excited if you paid us. If you’re a Paramore fan, don’t worry, the band’s beloved frontwoman has assured us that she has no plans to leave any time soon. In fact, she actually worked with her Paramore bandmates to create her new album. She simply wants to explore life as a solo artist, and if her recent performance is any indicator, she’s about to THRIVE.
Williams began to promote “Petals For Armor” in the only way that any artist knows how: cryptic Instagram posts. SMH. For a few weeks leading up to the release of “Simmer”, she posted photos of the night sky, a forest and other spooky imagery without captions. As we all know, this is musician code for “I’m about to drop something major”, so fans quickly began to speculate. Soon enough, we got our answer: “Simmer” and its accompanying music video, quickly followed the album announcement.
What no one was expecting, however, was the series of music videos that Williams put out for each single she released. The “Simmer” video featured her sprinting through a dark forest, pursued by a masked figure who (SPOILER ALERT) turns out to be herself. Gasp! Then came an interlude, where she becomes wrapped in a cocoon with herself? In the next single, “Leave It Alone”, Williams emerges from the cocoon, a scaly butterfly creature that walks the line between beautiful and hideous. Finally comes the “Cinnamon” music video, in which she is chased again-- this time, by dancers in morph suits. Finally, Hayley comes around to the creepy creatures, performing a dance routine with them that is, quite frankly, iconic. These videos are spoOoky, but we’re not mad about it.
The level of ~legendariness~ achieved by the music videos was not enough for Williams. She then took a page out of Beyonce’s book and dropped the first part of the album, aptly titled “Petals For Armor I”, as a surprise on February 6. This first collection contains the two singles, “Simmer” and “Leave It Alone”, as well as three more songs: “Cinnamon”, “Creepin”, and the fan-favorite “Sudden Desire”.
Much like her work for Paramore, each lyric on “Petals For Armor I” is raw and emotional. Still, Williams takes it to a new level with her solo work, drawing pain, melancholy, and ultimately strength from her recent divorce. Mirroring her music videos, the first five songs embody an emotional transformation that is at times gruesome but ultimately empowering and joyful. Williams somehow is able to capture every aspect of heartbreak and contain it in only five songs. For this reason, “Petals For Armor I” is--dare we say it-- one of the best breakup albums we’ve ever heard (sorry, Lorde, but Hayley’s coming for your crown).
We do not yet know how many more songs or fractions of the album will be released before May 8, the official release date. We also don’t know whether Hayley will decide to continue the storyline of her music videos or create an entirely new one. Regardless, we’re on the edge of our seats waiting to see what Hayley does next, and we’ll be watching our Instagram notifications closely until May 8.