Nine months after the release of her debut solo album, 2020's Petals for Armor, Hayley Williams returns with a surprise follow-up, 2021's deeply introspective Flowers for Vases/descansos. Where Petals for Armor found Williams collaborating with a handful of close associates, including her Paramore bandmate Taylor York, Flowers for Vases/descansos is an even more solo-oriented project with Williams playing all of the instruments herself and recording alone with Canon Blue's Daniel James producing. Largely acoustic with a limited amount of overdubs, Flowers feels somewhat more minimalist than the aesthetically varied Petals -- which isn't to say it's any less impressive. There is a sense that Williams is celebrating her influences, dipping into a little Fleetwood Mac twang here ("Over Those Hills"), some angelic folk harmonies à la Linda Ronstadt there ("Good Grief"). Then there's the slow-churning anthem "Just a Lover," a piano ballad that eventually crashes to a halt in a tidal wave of distorted bass and shimmering electric guitar; it's messier and more sprawling than anything Williams has done with Paramore, conjuring the brooding energy of late-'70s Patti Smith. We also get several delicately haunting and ambient songs like "KYRH" and the instrumental "Descansos" that bring to mind artists like Brian Eno and Philip Glass and speak to her broad taste.

1		First Thing To Go
2		My Limb
3		Asystole
4		Trigger
5		Over Those Hills
6		Good Grief
7		Wait On
8		KYRH
9		Inordinary
10		HYD
11		No Use I Just Do
12		Find Me Here
13		Descansos
14		Just a Lover

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