Album Review: Willow, ‘Coping Mechanism’

Just last year, Willow released her debut rock album, the rollicking Lately I Feel Everything, which featured collaborations with the likes of Travis Barker and Avril Lavigne. Although it was a slightly uneven affair, Willow used the album to seize the mainstream resurgence of pop-rock and wield it into something that felt distinctly hers. On her follow-up record, and fifth overall studio album, Willow sounds more confident than ever before. Coping Mechanism coolly meanders through loneliness and vulnerability by way of forays into metal and blues rock that add further depth to Willow’s sprawling sonic profile.

Lately I Feel Everything arrived on the heels of Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour and that album’s Paramore-indebted smash single, “good 4 u.” Like Rodrigo’s Grammy-nominated hit, Willow’s last record spent most of its time in a glossy pop-punk milieu that restricted her boundless and fearless imagination. Whatever the genre, a Willow Smith album is guaranteed to have something that’s just weird enough that it not only works, but also becomes the irreplicable element that lifts the music from good to great. Coping Mechanism doesn’t veer from the musical therapizing Willow started on Ardipithecus, but the album takes care to look beyond the most plasticky punk-pop and pop-rock sounds of the mainstream to find a space with some real grit.

Coping Mechanism shrinks the creative circle that brought Lately I Feel Everything to life. Across the album’s eleven tracks, Willow and Chris Greatti are the only artists to appear in the credits of every song. Their synergy is the basis of a listening experience that is as unpredictable as it is cohesive. “Maybe It’s My Fault” revels in anguish during the pre-chorus as Willow’s voice rips through the frenetic drums carrying notes of regret and confusion. On “Falling Endlessly,” the pair smartly place their bets on a downcast melody that sounds akin to a steady descent to the deepest depths of an abyss of paranoia. Greatti understands the elasticity of Willow’s voice in a way that few others have before. Moreover, Willow herself sounds more comfortable in her voice. She effortlessly moves from gut-wrenching snarls to hoarse falsetto to help bolster otherwise trite lyrics like “Look at my face, tell me / Who do you think's more insane? You or I?”

“Curious/Furious” and the ska-influenced “Hover Like A Goddess” find Willow blending the pop sensibilities of last year’s “transparent soul,” The 1st, and, yes, even “Whip My Hair,” into her harder rock sound. These songs are poppier than most of the album, but they offer pockets of parallelism to screamo-leaning tracks like “Ur a Stranger” and “Perfectly Not Close To Me.” The former features a distinctly erratic vocal performance that evokes the bone-chilling fear of a stranger who was once familiar. The latter, on the other hand, is a collaboration with Yves Tumor that acts as a guttural purging of the grief that consumes Willow in the wake of a relationship’s demise. It’s when she delves into a blues rock realm on “No Control,” however, that Willow finds a sound of endless potential. “Forget to speak the truth,” she croons on the song’s chorus; an uncomfortably honest admission of both guilt and pain that encapsulates Gen Z’s hardened malaise better than any of the forest or math metaphors that populate the album.

Coping Mechanism may fail to nail down a signature sound, and it may also err on the side of generic too often for its own good. Nonetheless, the album is an impressive dissection of the implosion of emotion that occurs at the end of a relationship. This is Willow’s most focused and cohesive body of work to date — a natural progression from Lately I Feel Everything that reminds us of just how beautiful is to watch an artist revel in their own willingness to experiment and evolve.

Score: 72

Key Tracks: “Ur A Stranger” | “Hover Like A Goddess” | “Maybe It’s My Fault” | “Curious/Furious”