Album Review: Squirrel Flower, ‘Say a Prayer to the Gods of Getting Going’ – Our Culture
Ella Williams is not the only artist for whom songwriting feels like divine intervention. The way she infuses it in her work as Squirrel Flower, though, is singular, and no album in her discography is more striking in its reverence than her latest, Say a Prayer to the Gods of Getting Going. Instead of amplifying the muscular sound of 2023’s Tomorrow’s Fire, her previous record with producer Alex Farrar, the new album draws ethereal textures out of both its heavier and acoustic moments. After all, the spiritual worldview she outlines on the title track is not exactly dualistic: there are the gods of getting going and the gods of standing still, and growth requires sacrifices to both. The record speeds up and slows down with no cohesive logic, yet it bleeds together into a dynamic, heavenly portrait of a wandering heart.
1. Say a Prayer to the Gods of Getting Going
The opening title track immediately situates Williams’ ethereal voice in the wide-open desert, wasting no time yet patiently unfurling. Against viscous guitar chords, Williams sings alongside her ghostly echo, which later strains as it climbs up an octave, still in the background: the sound of exhaustion teetering on transcendence.
2. Cleveland
The album’s final and strongest single, ‘Cleveland’ has an atypical co-write from Williams’ sibling Nate, and it’s an atypical love song, too, about choosing the Ohio city over a cute guy. Two years ago she declared it the “best pop song of my life,” and it strikes down the gauzy heart of the album like lightning. There’s absolutely no loneliness in the decision, as Williams’ guitar playing gathers up a storm alongside Farrar, Horse Jumper of Love’s Dimitri Giannopoulos, and Andy Krull. You can’t help fix your eyes at it, then tune into the thunder.
3. Not Me
The album’s sonic landscape steadily fills out as Williams adds her older brother, Jameson, and Seth Kauffman to the cast of guitarists and summons the robust rhythm section of bassist Dave Hartley (The War on Drugs) and drummer Chris Simmons. Yet she finds peace in solitude, building a barrier between dreams and reality, desire and reconciliation: “Desert sun, never needed anyone/ Try not to cross the line/ Give you space, give you time,” she sings.
4. Helicopters
Accompanied by Free Range’s Sofia Jensen and Jack Henry Lickerman on Rhodes and drums, respectively, Say a Prayer reaches another early peak as Williams carves a map of feeling “in the alleyways of last year/ And the highways of tomorrow/ On the bridge out of Hammond/ To the dunes with their sorrow.” As she repeats the two final words, she cathartically stretches the limits of her voice, front and center this time, somewhere between Mitski (an admittedly overused comparison early in her career) and Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman.
5. Highway Woman
The acoustic guitar sounds like a breath of fresh air, offering another avenue for Williams to showcase the delicate edges of her voice. Her hero is not a killing machine or anything, but she’s a star in the sense that “the blues goes anywhere she might be” and “she talks it up and they all listen.” Though not a single, the album’s quietest song ends up its sure-footed centerpiece.
6. Reelin
Now here’s a song that makes all too much sense as a single, with its 12-string guitar and accordion, a melody sweet like “forgiveness, like honey,” like the promise of a domesticated life wrapped up in a bow. What makes ‘Reelin’ so affecting, though, isn’t the vision of settling down itself, fleeting as it may be, but framing it as a familial conversation: “Oh mama I didn’t miss him,” she finally sings, revealing the person she ultimately wants to do right by. It’s not just him reeling her back, but a whole other branch in the fig tree.
7. Foot Thick Ice
It doesn’t take long for the bad things to creep back in, prompting the return of thunderous guitars. The slowness of the song is crucial both at its gut-wrenching chorus and languorous verses; Williams belts out again, this time dragging out the word “time” like it’s the most excruciating thing in the word. And sometimes it feels just like that, which means it’s time to get going.
8. Sick Tooth
Even on the grungy, fuzzed-out ‘Sick Tooth’, Williams makes her message loud and clear: “New buds/ New friends/ New car/ New problems.” Print that on a T-shirt.
9. Fought a Hornet
In stark contrast to the previous track, the celestial beauty of ‘Fought a Hornet’ is astounding, not least thanks to its intimate recording, accentuating every tremble in Williams’ voice, every move around the fretboard. Her accordion and Book not Brooke’s cello stand together in quiet reverence, barely moving yet holding the listener rapt.
10. Surfing USA
The record opens its heart back up, presenting a universal vision of escapism over a familiar chord structure (and somewhat odd rhyming). The production somehow makes it sound both hard as steel and light as a feather.
11. Weightless, Untethered
“Hey, weightless, untethered,” Williams begins, as if watching the album’s idealized qualities take human form. And the closing track operates entirely on that heart-to-heart level: “I can’t talk to people, I don’t know how,” she confesses. It goes without saying that she lets her singing voice and guitar do the talking, but the track’s bass parts, by Hartley and her father Jesse, also take on a strikingly emotional role. She knows she has to get going, and this is her shot at an explanation; there’s no need for divine intervention there. Standing still, though – slowing down, staying a moment longer, sitting through the tough conversation – is a different story. Harder to appease, but God knows we need it, too.