At the end of last year, Paramore lead singer Hayley Williams caught literally everyone by surprise when she announced on Twitter that she’d be releasing new music in 2020 that she would “call [her] own,” and soon began hinting at the solo project on a cryptic Instagram account.
— hayley from Paramore ? (@yelyahwilliams) December 28, 2019
It’s 2020 now, and guess what? We have our first glimpse into Hayley’s first solo album, Petals for Armor! On January 22nd, the first single “Simmer” dropped along with an eerie and twisted music video to accompany it, and it was simultaneously everything we could have ever wanted and nothing we expected.
The song itself is a jarring departure from what we’re used to hearing from her music in Paramore, from their chaotic and loud punk-rock days to their recent vibrant yet cynical pop album, After Laughter. ‘Simmer’ is moody both in lyrical content and in sound, beginning with pulsing synth and Hayley’s own breathing (heavy and chilling, like something out of Midsommar) acting as the beginning instruments before drums, dark bass, and a distant guitar accompany it. Then, Hayley’s vocals cut in, “Rage… is a quiet thing.” Though her voice is breathy and low, it doesn’t feel like she’s tip-toeing around the dark instrumental. Instead, she’s pulling us full force into the deep end and letting us peek into a side of her we hadn’t seen before.
Hayley’s lyrical prowess is the center stage in this track as she sings about anger: how hard it can be to control and how enticing it can be to let it consume you. She ponders over this in the chorus, her layered vocals asking an equally layered question of “how to draw the line between wrath and mercy?” This new side of the singer is raw, both in its viciousness and its softness.
In the second verse, her anger comes unhinged and without hesitation, “If my child needed protection from a f***er like that man, I’d sooner gut him ‘cause nothing cuts like a mother.” Yet toward the bridge, she realizes the necessity of vulnerability in the face of adversity, her echoes telling us to “wrap yourself in petals for armor.” Hayley talks about this in her interview with BBC, where she goes further into detail about the meaning of her album title: “I kept feeling like the way for me to protect myself best is to be vulnerable and be okay with having a lot of pain at certain times and also feeling a lot of joy at certain times.” In a chaotic and rough world that’s enough to drive anyone crazy, “Simmer” serves as a reminder that having control over our anger is more empowering than letting our anger control us.
The music video for ‘Simmer,’ directed by Warren Fu (who has also directed music videos for the likes of The 1975, Pharrell Williams and Daft Punk) is just as eerie as the song, following a seemingly naked Hayley as she runs through the woods and into a creepy house, all while trying to escape her glowing red rage. It’s only when she’s forced to confront her angry self and come to terms with it that she is able to metaphorically kill that version of herself and let it go, now making space to shape herself into someone new. The video is dark and alarming, which doesn’t come as a surprise if you were keeping track of the Instagram stories Hayley had been sharing leading up to the single’s release, where she posted a lot of photos of badass leading women in horror films. The horror-esque video feels like Hayley adding herself to that list, and she does a damn good job of it, if I do say so myself.
Now, after enjoying this dark bop of a song, you might be panicking and thinking “Is Paramore over?!” Fear not, reader! Not only was long-time Paramore member Taylor York involved in the writing and producing of the single, but the front-woman herself assured that “when it’s time for us to make the next Paramore record,” the progression of her lyrical exploration in this solo project will still be present in whatever project the band takes on next.
Hayley’s debut solo album, Petals for Armor, will be released on May 8th, and a solo tour is in the works. So far, we’ve been granted a taste into what we expected, but I still have no idea what else to expect from this album, and I think that unpredictability is what makes me look forward to it even more.