by Layton Guyton
Tomorrow’s Fire, the new album from Chicago artist Squirrel Flower is a potent record with self-effacing folk songwriting backed by a loud shoegaze-tinged band. This is Squirrel Flower’s third album for indie stalwarts Polyvinyl, and their most varied yet, equally full of loud, head-banging moments, and intricate, transcendent vocal arrangements.
The spiraling opener “I Don’t Use a Trash Can” sets the tone for the rest of the album, Ella Williams’ lyrics alternating between devotional and mundane, “Watching you spin/ I was overwhelmed in every way” to “I’m not gonna change my sheets / I’m not gonna clean the floor.” This contrast of the spiritual and the earthly is a theme throughout Tomorrow’s Fire, both lyrically and musically. Standout tracks “Alley Light” and “Almost Pulled Away” both strike this balance.
“Alley Light” is a classic heart-achey country rocker, reminiscent of a small town romance with lines about blue dresses and beat up cars. However, Squirrel Flower’s boundless voice and the track’s haunting guitar lines infuse it with complex emotions, conveying the depths of dedication and insecurity that any relationship contains. The following song “Almost Pulled Away” is a slow and smoldering tune that also tackles love and fear. It is probably the heaviest song on the album, anchored by a deep rhythm guitar. The central question of it: “How do people go day to day / When everything is sparkling?” is a line full of wonder and dread. Will the highs of love only make the banality of everyday life unbearable?
Alex Farrar’s (MJ Lenderman, Wednesday, Indigo de Souza) larger-than-life production serves as a perfect backdrop to each song. Squirrel Flower and Farrar seem to be perfectly in sync. Much of Tomorrow’s Fire evokes religious spaces, as cavernous reverb and echoes ring out and dense vocal arrangements inspire awe. As the lyrics leap from minute details like orange peels in your hand to the existential dread of planetary demise, it feels as though you are listening from within Squirrel Flower’s inner world. Thoughts weave between mundane and existential and every memory, no matter how specific or small, thrums with greater meaning. Tomorrow’s Fire burns slowly and brightly, a beautiful and entrancing album.