DAY 8
TRIUMPH OVER ADVERSITY
Hayley Williams -
Petals for Armor
Today is the one-year anniversary of this album's release, although the first two parts were released separately beforehand. Despite the three-part release cycle, I find the album does work best as a whole, but at the same time the separation of the three chunks of the album does serve a narrative point.
PFA is largely an album about emerging from a toxic relationship and the challenges that come with regaining control of your life and mental stability in the aftermath of it all. The album starts with its angriest, most bitter and forlorn songs, and throughout the course of the album, though the pain caused by this person may not be entirely gone, those driving emotions are replaced instead by a newfound love for herself and others in her life, and the desire to "bloom" and take full control of her life. It is one woman's document to self-recovery through the power of finding the strength to move forward and become better than you ever were before.
Petals for Armor is also the album I needed during quarantine. Though a lot of albums helped me survive the soul-crushing loneliness of lockdown, PFA is perhaps the only one that genuinely helped me keep my head on straight. I saw many parallels with Hayley's journey on the album and my own, having come out of a toxic relationship that ended rather poorly myself in 2018, which I find the lasting effects of still bother me to this day. In particularly weak moments of isolation during 2020, I would have no choice but to reminisce on the past and dwell on it, something that rarely leads to good ideas. Sometimes I would try to convince myself into reaching back out to that person, but I know from experience that all that does is cause all the pain and misery I experienced in 2018 to bubble back up to the surface. So I told myself not to give into those persistent thoughts and tried to tell myself I was stronger than that. And in those moments, I would revisit
Petals for Armor and it would help me realize that I can move on and triumph as well, that I don't have to live under the thumb of depression and be haunted forever by ghosts of the past. A year later, this album still has great emotional resonance for me and I love it. It's a reminder to me that even when you've gone through the darkest period of your life, you can still come out on the other side and not only survive, but thrive - or in this case, bloom.
"
I'm alive in spite of me
And I'm on the move
So come and look inside of me
Watch me while I bloom"
songhoyblues.com
