Tomorrow’s Fire may be Squirrel Flower’s most impassioned and engaging album yet

By Jo Higgs

Squirrel Flower records get more and more gorgeous, release by release, and in its opening moments Tomorrow’s Fire promises the same velvety sorrow. Yet, early in the blossoming of Full Time Job, an incision is made in the fabric of the project, and out of it pours a vicious herniation of fuzz, grit and angst (not to say Ella Williams’ prior works weren’t brimming with angst in their own way).

Following this foray into thunderous instrumentals, Stick would satisfy someone in search of the sludgiest of sounds. The mix is filled so fully, and still, haunting backing vocals slip into the thinnest of spaces, pushing the glorious sense of claustrophobia as far as it will go and invigorating a deep and desperate passion.

Alley Light might nominally evoke one way to brighten a given space, but in reality the song is more suited to the waving clippers of a few thousand giddy festival goers under the moonlit sky – its anthemics are so strong it ensures the track a spot in the highest echelons of the Squirrel Flower discography. Even the gentle beauty of Almost Pulled Away and When a Plant is Dying is a short-lived façade, made all the more intimate in their inception by the burring guitars that slip in and carry the tracks away into the sunset.  

Like planet (i) and its follow-up EP Planet, Tomorrow’s Fire powerfully portrays Williams’ overbearing climate anxiety, an empathy for our home and how it is tragically lacking in those who can really affect change. Finally Rain (in tandem with the album title) communicates a devastating desperation for salvation – the fresh sensation of a washing over of water, or more analytically: any sense of hope for a world set to be burnt out by humans. 

Squirrel Flower albums are hard to quantify, and even more so with regard to one another, but Tomorrow’s Fire stakes a strong claim for being the most impassioned and engaging yet. 

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