A.A. Williams has never been an artist who shouts. She whispers, she builds, she lets the weight do the talking. And on ‘Hold It Together‘, the latest single from her forthcoming third album “Solstice“, that restraint becomes something devastating.
The London-based singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist follows up the already-impressive “Wolves” with a track that sits in that precise, horrible tension between keeping yourself together and quietly coming apart. It’s not dramatic in any obvious way. It doesn’t need to be. The guitars swell like weather gathering on the horizon, her voice moving from hushed confession to something that carries real command, and the whole thing lands like a slow bruise.
Her own words on the song say it better than most critics could: “You smile, you carry on, feeling everything, showing nothing“. That’s the emotional core of it, that very human act of performing okayness while something underneath is crumbling. Williams renders that experience not as self-pity but as portrait, precise and unflinching.
“Solstice” arrives on June 5th via RPM, and if “Hold It Together” is any measure, this record is shaping up to be her most complete statement yet. Two albums of widespread critical acclaim already under her belt, tours with Cult Of Luna, Explosions In The Sky, Sleep Token and The Sisters Of Mercy, a BBC session at Maida Vale, praise from Robert Smith and Billy Corgan for her lockdown covers record. The credentials are immaculate. But credentials are just scaffolding. What matters is the music, and right now, this music is extraordinary.
