10.13.23 – By Shea Roney

There are moments of stillness, driving along a midwest interstate, when you can see a storm in full effect on the horizon. As the lightning flashes down to the earth with no utterance of thunder, unsure how far it actually is, you wonder if you’re safe at this distance. Squirrel Flower, the project of Ella Williams, has spent years traveling America in search of steady ground and a glimpse of the horizon. With a much more heavy handed sound than previous releases, Planet (i) and I Was Born Swimming, Williams approaches this storm with nothing but a Springsteen tape and a pack of cigarettes. On her latest project, Tomorrow’s Fire, that was released today, Williams takes us on a roadtrip across America’s flatlands with an album weighted down by industrial sized distortion and bruised vocals that reimburse human fragility. 

The album opens with, “i don’t use a trash can,” a re-imagined version of the first Squirrel Flower song that Williams released in 2015. In that case, Tomorrow’s Fire starts with a keen sense of proclamation; reevaluating a new sense of place in time. Coated by minimalist instrumentation and layered harmonies, Williams’ voice is hauntingly enveloped in that early version of the song. After moving from Iowa to Chicago, Williams refound her love for self production and joined producer Alex Farrar (Wednesday, Indigo De Souza, Waxahachie) as the two of them worked to record and produce this bold and sincere new collection of songs. “i don’t use a trash can” glides diligently through its surroundings as Williams looks in the rearview mirror, transcending her career to this point. 

“Full Time Job” and “When A Plant Is Dying,” the first two singles teased, with their constructed-feedback, washy drum runs and vocal skirmishes, were clear to break all previous/predetermined labels of a soft and folky Squirrel Flower. “Full Time Job” is as reflective as it is buoyed by apprehension. “Doing my best is a full time job / But it doesn’t pay the rent,” Williams sings with striking veracity. Racking through economical struggles, heteronormative expectations and the fear of renunciation, the frustration in Williams’ words is only amplified by the ripping guitars and thrashing drums behind her. The second single, “When A Plant Is Dying,” leans more into a shoegaze-type glare. With a mellow, yet sturdy, vocal approach where Williams’ words sit intensely in a world of deafening guitar sounds that beautifully clash together, she sings “There must be more to life / Than being on time / These days it takes a sunrise / To remember you’re alive,” circulating on a larger sort of introspection.  

Williams’ lyricism is cutthroat and often breeding emotional duress. With her ability to tell stories in a way that is fully characterized and true, Williams’ imagery is equal to that of particular realism movements; told without speculation and force. “Alley Light” tells of a modern day romantic with as much clarity and demeanor that it could fall in the realms of a song like Tom Petty’s “Into The Great Wide Open.” Williams divulges this character’s woes as she sings, “She says she wants to go far / Outta town in my beat up car / Will she find another man who can take her there / When my drive burns out?” There is fragility that speaks to the fear that everything we love is fleeting. “Intheskatepark” is an exulting alternative pop song that leans into this practical yet naive teenage attitude. Melting into the black top, getting stoned on the rooftops, and summery teenage lust takes the wheel in a song that makes us covet those days. “Canyon,” one of the heaviest songs on the album and fitting to the nature of an apocalyptic Wim Wender’s film, Williams tells the story of teenage recklessness and what we have left to show of it. “When my mother was fifteen / Full of fire and nicotine / She said fuck the DMV / Drove down to see Springsteen,” she sings over stadium sized drum pounds and steelbending guitar slides. 

The closing track, “Finally Rain,” remarkably beautiful and spiritually ambiguous, is a love letter to Williams’ loved ones, and perhaps to herself as well. It’s a predicament to be young, to have people you care for, and know that the earth, our home, is dying. “If this is what it means to be alive / I won’t grow up,” Williams almost pleads, but it’s hard to say to whom. As an extension to her loved ones, Williams wishes to protect them in ignorance as we watch our own destruction. Though bleak, there comes relief from the word ‘finally’ in the title, as Williams brings her roadtrip to a close. 

Tomorrow’s Fire, the title itself taking inspiration from a novel written by Williams’ great-grandfather, is in reference to a troubadour; a lyrical poet. As tomorrow’s fires go, lighting the path to our own futures, Williams wields the idea in defiance to nuanced nihilism and self-regarded fate. And as Squirrel Flower goes, Williams has embodied the works of her great-grandfather centuries later, becoming a troubadour herself; flexible in structure and authentic in writing. Driving point blank into the blooming, dark clouds on the horizon, unaware of what may happen, the storm is finally here, but Williams refuses to turn the car around.