Hayley Williams just goes for it with her gut instincts, and you know what? She’s proving them never to be wrong, giving zero fucks at this stage in her career what the industry wants her to be. Now with Paramore (as well as her own) freedom being the new reality of her artistic career since gaining independent freedom from the label that had its creative restraints strapped around her then-teenage wrists, her latest solo effort, Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party, is like one big emotional roller coaster that lets all the shouting, screaming, crying, pain, and deserved moments of joy out in in one sitting.

It’s been a refreshing ride with this one, as she didn’t go about releasing the album under any trad, normie album cycle conventions — all which have only emboldened its full body. By initially releasing all 17 of its tracks on her website in no concrete order and no album title, Williams invited listeners to build their own adventure with its playlist before properly announcing its physical release. It gave us all a chance to work through the drama and many fashions at our own pace for a minute rather than force-binging down any set narratives like most bloated event album drops tend to do these days.

The official tracklist doesn’t even matter in the end. The whole of the album is proudly genre-agnostic, channeling a diversity of styles that form-fit Williams’ faceted creative personas. There’s guitar-spiraling shoegaze (“Mirtazapine”), depressive dream-pop (“Discovery Channel”), bright bubbles of art-pop (“Love Me Different”), rock-edged, SZA-sizzled modern R&B (“Ice In My OJ”, “Ego Death At Bachelorette Party”,) and heck, even a signature return to form of big-feeling emo (“Glum”). Along the way, Williams makes it a point to pull no punches in saying what she wants to say and has always meant to say out loud. Political niceties, Christian hypocrisy, and racist country stars being damned. Progressive as fuck no matter which way you hold it, Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party solidifies Williams’ status as one of the most realist alternative pop stars to do it this generation.

Highlights: “Ice In My OJ”, “Mirtazapine”, “Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party”

Hayley Williams’ Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party is available now on Post Atlantic.

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