Once an alt-rocker, always an alt-rocker just with a different sound. That’s what Hayley Williams is showing us with the release of her fresh single and accompanying visual. 

In late 2019, Hayley Williams of Paramore teased that solo music was on the way. The suspense surrounding when we would get a taste ended on Wednesday (22nd Jan) when Williams released her first single, Simmer.

While Paramore bandmates and collaborators play a part in the lyrics and production of this song, the dark, pulsating ambiance you hear is distinctly her own. Breathy echoes coexist seamlessly with Williams’ normally round vocals bringing calmness to the anger the sound and lyrics represent. It’s haunting.

This vibe is thoroughly represented in the video, which shows a nude Williams running through a forest trying to escape a shadowy figure representing her anger. The desperation to run from, and subsequently face those demons is a theme that is deeply rooted in the song through lyrics like: “if my child needed protection / From a fucker like that man / I’d sooner gut him / ‘Cause nothing cuts like a mother.”

Speaking on her solo project, Williams said:

I’m so ready and so incredibly humbled to get to share this project. Making it was a scary, empowering experience. Some of my proudest moments as a lyricist happened while writing PETALS FOR ARMOR. And I was able to get my hands a little dirtier than usual when it came to instrumentation. I’m in a band with my favorite musicians so I never really feel the need to step into a role as a player when it comes to Paramore records. This project, however, benefited from a little bit of musical naïveté and rawness and so I experimented quite a bit more. I made this with some of the closest people to me. Their respective talents really shine bright throughout the record. I like to think we all make each other better and the result is something that sounds and FEELS exactly as I’d hoped it would. Now that it’s time to put it all out there, I can finally exhale. I’m excited to let people in to experience a different side of myself that I’ve only very recently become familiar with.

Hayley Williams’ debut album, PETALS FOR ARMOR, will be released 8th May 2020. Until then, simmer, simmer, simmer down.