The First Record "Daughters" Explores Grief and Elegance
Within this song "Miss America", listeners are placed inside a hotel room close to JFK airport, where the musician receives a devastating news of her father's cancer diagnosis. This Sunderland-born artist had been traveling America for the first time, playing alongside group Kero Kero Bonito, and abruptly grief casts a shadow, coloring everything in grey. Unsteady piano and soft strings accompany dark dispatches emanating from the tour van: "Rural scenes and crumbling homes / Shopping centers, illicit trades, anxious moments."
Her soft singing are delivered in a deadpan manner, while the album's tension arises from the keen writing—blending fiction, traditional phrases, and direct personal notes—coupled with surprising maximalism. Few songs recently possess stronger storytelling style than "Shelly", which depicts the killing of a deer and spirals into a fuel-soaked confrontation, reminiscent of written pieces illuminated with flickers of warped strings. Anxious, quiet verses with resonating, strummed strings transition to expansive refrains, and her vocals electronically altered into something omniscient and menacing.
Audiences may previously know Walton from her work as an electronic producer, DJ, and contributor in groups like Caroline. Daughters' sonic turns draw on her varied career. The opener "Sometimes" erupts in flourish, as if a string band taken by surprise, while "Born Again Backwards" radically increases the tempo with a punishing, stunning, repeating drum fill. Dense layers of audio, expertly mixed with a long-term collaborator, feel both gnarly and ethereal, and her dark, enchanted thoughts peak in standout "Lambs", a song that briefly becomes a twirling dance. "I hope your existence doesn't conclude with dying," she pleads, exuding heart-aching gallows humor.
