The First Album "Daughters" Delves Into Grief and Style
In this track "Miss America", listeners are placed inside a hotel room near JFK airport, where Jennifer Walton learns the devastating news that her dad has illness discovery. This Sunderland-born performer had been traveling America on her initial visit, playing alongside indie band Kero Kero Bonito, when abruptly grief takes over, coloring all with melancholy. Faltering piano and hushed orchestration underscore gothic dispatches from the road: "Rural scenes and crumbling homes / Strip-mall, drug deal, panic attacks."
Walton's soft singing are delivered with a deadpan manner, yet the album's intensity arises from the sharp writing—mixing fiction, folksy sayings, and blunt diary entries—along with surprising maximalism. Few tracks this year showcase stronger novelistic flair than "Shelly", a piece that depicts the death of an animal and spirals into a fuel-soaked confrontation, evoking literary pieces lit by flickers of warped strings. Anxious, quiet verses featuring echoing, plucked strings transition into expansive refrains, with her voice electronically altered into a presence all-knowing and menacing.
Audiences might already be familiar with the artist as an electronic producer, disc jockey, and contributor to bands like Caroline. Daughters' musical twists draw on her varied career. The first track "Sometimes" bursts with fanfare, like an ensemble caught unawares, while "Born Again Backwards" radically ups the BPM via a punishing, stunning, looping percussion. Thick walls of sound, skillfully mixed by a long-term partner, feel at once gnarly and spiritual, while Walton's dark, enchanted thinking culminate on highlight "Lambs", a song that momentarily becomes a swirling jig. "May your life never end in death," she pleads, exuding poignant gallows humor.
