Album Review: Hayley Williams Goes Deeper With ‘FLOWERS for VASES / descansos’

Written and recorded entirely alone, the Paramore frontwoman’s second release in a year sees her ready to accept the darkness that inspired her solo ambitions in the first place. 

Written by Carys Anderson

Photo courtesy of Lindsey Byrnes 

Last May, after 15 years of “Paramore is a band” t-shirts and “of Paramore” public titles, Hayley Williams became what she had long insisted she’d never be: a solo artist. Her first non-Paramore release, Petals For Armor, confronted truths too personal and dabbled in genres too eclectic for the established pop-rock of her band. It revealed a despondency always bubbling underneath the surface of the animated singer, from the infidelity central to the rise and fall of her marriage to her struggles with depression. 

Released in three parts, Petals followed Williams through a stretch of personal growth, and its music matched its narrative: dissonant strings to desperation, glossy guitars to smug confidence, buoyant keys to restored peace. Like most of the songstress’ music, it ended on a happy note; she seemed to be in love again. 

Now, less than a year later, Williams returns with a much more somber batch of songs — acoustic guitar and warm piano build 14 heartsick ballads. Dubbed as a prequel, “or some sort of detour between parts 1 and 2” of its predecessor, the singer’s second LP revels in the desolation that began her first. Petals For Armor moves through Williams’ rage and depression into triumphant love and happiness; FLOWERS for VASES / descansos shows us how she got there and how, in spite of newfound contentment, past wounds can still linger. 

“If your part of me is gone now, do I wanna survive?” the singer asks in “My Limb,” a witchy number in which she opts to bleed out from the pain of a breakup rather than accept any consolation. Staccato guitar and throaty vocals make the track especially gloomy, and the melodrama of Williams’ words unveils a despair she usually glosses over. 

While the artist insisted last go around that her solitude is, in fact, welcome freedom, FLOWERS finds her with her fists down. “If only I could prove that on my own I’m worthy,” she sings over Spanish guitar in “Asystole,” itself a medical term for heart failure. “There’s no such thing as good grief / Haven’t eaten in three weeks,” she admits later, in the confessional “Good Grief.” Williams has historically danced around her problems, offering a hopeful one liner to chase the bad taste of reality or clouding her issues in upbeat music. Now, there’s nowhere to hide her loneliness; the music is too quiet. 

This untempered anguish is but one achievement of FLOWERS for VASES / descansos. Written and recorded entirely by Williams in her home in Nashville, Tenn., the record offers a vulnerability not afforded in her collaborative efforts. Only Williams’ vision goes here: no chord progression is a compromise, no performance is credited to another, no words are minced for a group message. The DIY approach illuminates Williams’ instrumental talents, underutilized in Paramore, and lends the album a sonic cohesion its wide-ranging predecessor lacked. 

Image courtesy of Atlantic Records

Often, songs jump from lo-fi demos to final cuts; “HYD,” a foreboding ponderance of how a past love is doing now, begins with Williams cursing an airplane flying above her microphone before its slow-picked chords begin in earnest. Yet, despite these inside editions, the artist still delivers a refined finished product. Slick production from Daniel James and mixing from Carlos De La Garza add modern flourishes to the otherwise skeletal tracks, from the burst of harmonies that jolt opener “First Thing To Go” to pitched down vocals that end “No Use I Just Do.”

A few moments prove less interesting than others in this stark, singer-songwriter aesthetic. “Trigger” nears Mumford and Sons territory with its two-note chirp and platitudes (“I got the trigger but you hold the gun / How come you never put the safety on?”), and “Wait On” relies on a melody too agreeable to stand out. 

Fortunately, these sleepers are broken up by some of the album’s most distinct turns. Guitar-bass bounce brings a bittersweet groove to “Over Those Hills,” a mid-tempo fantasy in which a past relationship lasts. “We could look out together in those hills forever,” Williams coos, complete with a scratchy little guitar solo. The brief electric glimmer offers a moment of sweetness in an otherwise grim soundscape. 

On the flip side, “KYRH” and “No Use I Just Do” swell with emotive piano as the singer tries, and fails, to move on. “Keep you right here / Where the line is / At my fingers / On the surface,” Williams repeats in the former, looking for distance. But “It’s no use, I just love you,” she soon resigns in the latter, accepting defeat. Every Paramore album has at least one ballad, but these tracks prove Williams’ most mature and arresting to date.

These bare bones coalesce on “Just A Lover,” FLOWERS for VASES / descansos’ stomping closer. Farway piano welcomes a rare drum groove, which soon becomes a full, one-woman band drone. A slew of diaristic writing ultimately gives way to the record’s most unflappable moment. “No more music for the masses,” Williams belts, finally unveiling the voice that once filled stadiums. Soon after comes an abrupt quiet. With a quick fade out, the surprise album ends. In all, a left-field flash, but an illuminating one all the same.