Though her career started in the late 2010s, few artists today feel as tied to these last three years than Squirrel Flower. Her Polyvinyl debut, I Was Born Swimming, arrived just a month into 2020 and, for many listeners, it seemed as though she’d emerged as a fully formed artist—with titanic songs like “Red Shoulder” innately at her disposal. As the years have worn on, she has become a veritable font for thought-provoking, beautiful indie folk. A particularly versatile writer, she sounds just as confident performing anthemic rock songs like “Roadkill” as she does wandering folk ballads like “Iowa 146.” At the heart of every Squirrel Flower song, though, is Ella Williams. The Massachusetts-born singer and songwriter, now based in Chicago, is prolific, having released three projects—two albums and an EP—in as many years, strongly evolving with each passing project.
Her third album, Tomorrow’s Fire, is her best work. Leaning in harder than ever to rock music, the roiling catharsis so often found in Williams’ vocal performance now bleeds into the production. Tomorrow’s Fire is lean, clocking in at 34 minutes across 10 tracks, but Williams doesn’t waste a second of it. She produced the album, along with current indie rock go-to Alex Farrar at Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville. Alongside Williams, the album features performances from Matt McCaughan and Seth Kauffman, who have played with the likes of Bon Iver and Angel Olsen for years. Also featured here on guitar is one MJ Lenderman, who’s distinct style meshes well with Williams’ most fearsome arrangements.
Given her second album, Planet (i), was a concept record about the place humanity will abscond to after rendering Earth uninhabitable, it would be fair to assume Tomorrow’s Fire covers similar thematic ground. Instead, the title comes from that of her great-grandfather’s novel (a quote he hawked from the Medieval French poet Rutebeuf, “Tomorrow’s hopes provide my dinner / Tomorrow’s fire must warm tonight.”) It’s the kind of obscure literary inspiration that just makes sense as something that would speak to an artist like Squirrel Flower. By Williams’ approximation, that fire is solace, a means for us to face the darkness of everyday life.
Released in tandem with the album’s announcement, “Full Time Job” and “When a Plant Is Dying” both feel cut from the same cloth. They each find their narrator on edge. The former is caught in a cycle that befalls creatives with as much ambition as Williams seems to hold—the constant need to be making things can feel like it’s creeping up behind you. She boils this down to the crushing line “taking it easy is a full-time job / one I’m tired of.” Similarly, the chorus of “When a Plant is Dying” includes the phrase “there must be more to life than being on time.” This is, perhaps, the swiftest kick Williams has ever written. It’s the kind of line that, at first, feels unassuming before it hits you—subsequently staying with you every time you feel the panic of waking up a little later than planned. Williams is right, we weren’t made to suffer this specific angst. Both songs’ protagonists are reaching a breaking point, and the raw edge to them is mirrored in the music. Guitars shred and distort, drums ring out through the chaos. It’s as though the songs are an exercise in relief, the sonic equivalent of those rooms where you pay to smash chairs or whip a vase at the wall.
Not all of Tomorrow’s Fire carries this much heft, though. “Intheskatepark” is a bouncy, nostalgic delight, and a rare instance of Williams verging into the territory of indie pop. For all of her versatility, a song this upbeat and propulsive is a surprising first. Written in the summer of 2019, it feels like a time capsule missive of simpler times, the sun setting late in the day and endless time ahead. “I thought if i told you slowly / You’d be feeling the same way,” Williams repeats as the song fades away.
“Alley Light” finds Squirrel Flower taking on the hardscrabble perspective of a down on his luck man who may as well have walked out of a Springsteen song. Writing from outside perspectives is a mode that Williams has tried out before and excels in. The lead single from Planet (i) was a grunge-indebted song called “Hurt a Fly,” where she sang from the perspective of a self-assured, narcissistic man. There though, Williams still wrote with a knowing empathy despite her character’s lack thereof. With “Alley Light,” a song about feeling insecurity while in love, Williams’ persona sings with admiration in their voice about someone they worry they’ll be unable to keep interested. She slips effortlessly into this role, the caring nature of her character more in line with the breadth of her work. With rough hewn guitar riffs and a country rock sensibility, it’s home to one of the album’s most rewarding melodic structures, revving up and stalling out like her narrator’s dying car.
“Canyon,” an unassuming song on the album’s back half, is a true standout. Acting as the molten core of Tomorrow’s Fire, “Canyon” is a slow burn, its story told through vague reference and little detail. Williams’ mother is pictured on an ill-advised drive to see a Springsteen gig. There are nods to highways, nicotine, the overwhelming power of nature and throwing one’s phone into the abyss. It may be hard to decipher, but it’s rewarding all the same. Williams’ powerhouse vocals go head-to-head with the guitars, as if they’re seeing who can reach more overwhelming heights.
As an acknowledgement of how far she’s come, the album opens with “i don’t use a trash can,” which Williams has referred to as her first song. Originally included on the 2015 EP early winter songs from middle america, it has been revived and retouched, draped in the lush, cavernous sound its new home affords. It’s an interesting choice to begin an album that feels so decidedly like the start of a new phase of a career with a backward glance. Perhaps Williams just liked the song and wanted to polish it and bring it back into the fold. Or maybe there’s some thematic common ground with the kind of nihilism it touches on. Throughout “i don’t use a trashcan,” she sings of all the trappings of domesticity she’s not interested in doing. She won’t be changing her sheets; she will just continue to, eyes closed, sway through life.
Read our recent feature on Squirrel Flower here.
Eric Bennett is a music critic in Philadelphia with bylines at Pitchfork, Post-Trash and The Alternative. They are also a co-host of Endless Scroll, a weekly podcast covering the intersection of music and internet culture. You can follow them on Twitter @violet_by_hole.
