A Review of Willow's petal rock black

Album cover from Three Six Zero Recordings

Willow’s newest album, petal rock black, arrived as a surprise on February 17th of this year. The album is Willow’s seventh full-length project. While there was no official announcement for the album, Willow had still been posting some very vague yet still exciting teasers on her Instagram. No matter how big of a trend the surprise album becomes, I still love it every time. While a thorough media campaign can be incredible, while marketing can be the thing that creates your album buzz like we saw with Charli xcx and Brat, I love the freedom that comes with musicians being able to be sporadic and surprising with what they put out. I wonder what a movie release with no pre-promo, no premier, no press tour on the lead up to the release, would look like.

petal rock black’s opener is an entirely spoken-word piece, performed by pioneer of funk and head of musical collective Parliament-Funkadelic, George Clinton. This song the perfect choice for the album opener, in my opinion. Clinton’s voice is deep and raspy, and he enunciates slowly over a backing instrumental that sounds eerily like being underwater. A low drum beats sporadically throughout the song’s runtime of half a minute as what sounds like some kind of rattle shakes. It’s really cool. ‘Goddess, rain woman,’ Clinton emphasizes as the intro comes to a close. ‘Shadow me, Mother / With your ear to the cocoon.’

As the album continues, Willow’s smooth voice floats over punchy drums and piano and guitar played in equal dramatic tandem. The album is pop-y yet alternative and progressive. It’s also, in a couple of very prominent ways, a jazz album.

The second song of the album is the melodic vegetation. The song’s centerpiece is Willow’s catchy, repeated mix of humming and scatting that serves as both vocals, and then as a kind of percussion on the song. As the song builds, Willow introduces a sharpness into her voice as drums, piano, and eventually some screaming swell to accompany her. The song tapers off as various people maniacally laugh over an increasingly distorted guitar version of the melody that Willow was humming/scatting.

Another incredible high moment on the album for me is track seven, i would die 4 u. This song is a cover of Prince's I Would Die 4 U. It's less dressed up than Prince's original, but the message is still conveyed. If anything, the stripped version feels more intimate and vulnerable than the original's fast pace and ticking percussion. With this song, Willow adds to the ever-growing group of contemporary influences using Prince as a major inspiration. While Prince will never go out of style, as music trends began to swing more 80s again, the amount of people referencing of course went up. Just in the last two years we’ve had the likes of Mk.gee and Dijon rise in their fame, both of whom have an obvious affinity for Prince’s musicality and prowess on the guitar.

For the next track, omnipotent, Willow enlists help from American artsy indie pop duo, Tune-Yards. The song is a very dreamy, yet still down-to-Earth song. Merrill Garbus’ voice is more nasally than Willow, and also richer. Hearing these two on a track together is such a treat; their voices compliment each other very well. The outro features Willow speaking, saying ‘Webara were the ancestors, the first ones who brought fire to the land, webara.’ At the end, a man’s voice speaks along with her, echoing her words of ‘Webara are the ancestors’ again, before Willow dreamily repeats the word ‘webara’ in a very pretty sing-song.

Another track that lends to Willow’s continued exploration of jazz is holy mystery. The song is bare, but not boring by any means. The song seems to consist entirely of rumbling bass, punchy drums, and Willow’s perfectly layered voice. I’m happy that this song keeps things simple, too, because it lets Willow’s voice shine. And, while there are lyrics in this song, most of the singing is Willow’s repeated vocalization of, ‘Ooh, ayy-oh, ayy-oh, ayy (Uh, ayy, ayy, uh, ooh).’ The lyrics in the song otherwise are, ‘Lay me down on this altar of love / I am an offering / I am honoring thee / You holy mystery.’

The album’s closer borrows its title from its opener: ear to the cocoon. (‘Shadow me, Mother / With your ear to the cocoon.’ Clinton sings at the end of the first track.) In fact, the outros entire intro is Willow’s jazzy, sung rendition of the song petal rock black. She takes the lyrics she wrote for Clinton and proves again, how good of an artist she is. Her singing on this song is my favorite on the whole album. The agility in her voice is incredible: to have the album’s beginning and end be different version of each other was genius. With every album, Willow’s sound changes, yet it never feels gimmicky or in-genuine. Willow is a younger artist still evolving, and I’m very excited to hear what she has to offer next.