Hayley Williams has always been a force to be reckoned within the music world. You can’t just be the leading force of a band, of a pillar of the mid-00’s emo boom, like Paramore, go back to the drawing board not just once but twice, and not come out feeling like you’ve always been holding on to some kind of special power. Yet for all the praise and invincible status we’ve attached to Hayley Williams the musician, it has become rather easy to sidestep the sensitive territory of Hayley Williams as a person, as well as everything that involves spending time in order to better understand her as this everyday, normal, not-at-all-invincible human being. Yet there are definitely no hard feelings between Hayley and her fans with regards to this – browse any social network with a heavy Paramore/Hayley fan presence, and you’ll quickly discover that the love will always continue to flow both ways. And in an age when more artists lean towards using their platform and the tools afforded to them through the creation of their specific art in order to peel back layers and expose rather personal aspects of themselves, it can feel very beneficial, almost life-saving, when an artist reassures the people that look up to them that it’s okay to not have felt okay at some point in time due to their own similar lived experience. And when the artist-in-question believes, at least from their perspective, that the best way to arrive at a place of strength is to start from a place of vulnerability, one can’t help but feel that maybe, just maybe, the seeds for a light at the end of the tunnel have been planted. Such is the approach that Hayley takes on Petals for Armor I, an EP that forms the first part of a larger musical project with the same name. And if this EP is anything to go by, fans wouldn’t be too written off as too optimistic to expect a powerful, radiant brightness in the near future.
On paper, the EP is brief, coming in at only five songs that stretch a lean eighteen minutes, yet Hayley is able to pack an album’s worth of ideas into this short collection. The project opens with “Simmer” and closes with “Sudden Desire,” and it is only fitting that this pair of tunes serve as the project’s bookends. The former has Hayley commencing not only the song, but the entire EP, with a bit of harmonizing set against melodies of the dark yet cool variety, sounds that slowly ooze out of the cauldron while Hayley brings her lyrics to life. She maintains a calm, collected disposition throughout, and while there are moments when her emotions are quite exposed, she doesn’t let herself feel any shame for wading into this vulnerable territory. Much like the technique from which the song gets its name, she brings many of these feelings and personal maladies to the fore, not necessarily to unbottle them all at once but, at the very least, to make their existence known.
Indeed, you could say that this approach of tempering the atmosphere is a theme that recurs across not just the song’s words, but its production and instrumentation as well. If “Simmer” was a slow pour of fervor, then “Leave It Alone” is Hayley putting down her glass and letting the mix sit and flourish. I do contend that Hayley’s vocals do not have a single weak moment across the whole EP, yet it feels as if there is a dilemma of trying to decide which song is the best display of her singing and songwriting abilities. For all of its highlights, I think that “Leave It Alone” would have to do a hell of a lot to get to the number one spot, but the very quiet, restrained angle at which her vocals come from, combined with the cut’s slick production, still make a very good case for not just her talents, but also the way in which Hayley is able to distill so much while remaining in this realm of the curtailed.
We’ve always known what Hayley was capable of doing with her voice, whether it was the decade-plus she’s logged with Paramore, or the songs by other artists that she’s covered. Yet something like “Cinnamon” happens, and it’s almost as if a hidden chamber is unlocked, and never before discovered talents are unleashed. And it should be noted that the song still has Hayley continuing to explore the subject matter that she has been exploring in the previous two songs, yet I’m almost sure that the audience won’t be able to help notice that it sounds like she’s having fun exploring these parts of her emotions, stacking these layers of vocals atop one another as they swirl into a colorful ball of operatic delight. It could not be a more appropriate midpoint for a project as it exits its opening that has a more deliberately paced kind of tempo, and begins to head towards what is sure to be a fiery conclusion.
And in a way, fiery is a term that can be used to describe “Sudden Desire,” the final song of what has been a wondrous plate of sounds. I mean, Hayley certainly goes in an explosive direction once the song kicks into delivering its chorus, and she does it in a way that makes the song an ideal partner to the opener that is “Simmer.” Yet the song is also focused on making important things, or rather the existence of those things acknowledged, instead of unleashing everything at once, even if it does feel like she puts a lot of emotion and many thoughts in the open that the world will end up taking and (possibly) pick apart. And to all that, I can only focus on her approach to laying these things bear, which is turning the volume slightly up throughout the course of the song.
Petals for Armor I is, without question, one of the best music releases of the year, and the album is not even due to hit shelves for another two months. Across just five songs and 18 packed minutes, Hayley simultaneously leaves no stone unturned while still leaving open the possibility to say much, much more. We always felt like we had someone to depend on in Hayley whenever we needed to tap into that raw, uncontrollable, yet confused teenage angst. This time, in an age of striving to more responsibly and healthily manage our emotions, it can feel reassuring to run into some who feels like an old friend, learn that a similar journey hasn’t been any easier for them, but know that they are willing to help in whatever way they can because in some indescribable way, the support is still there, like it always has.
Odd Blue Fruit 