🔗 Share this article

Within the song "Miss America", listeners find themselves inside a hotel room near JFK airport, as the musician receives the heartbreaking news that her dad has cancer diagnosis. The Sunderland-born artist was traveling the US for the first time, playing alongside group Kero Kero Bonito, when abruptly sadness casts a shadow, tinging everything in grey. Faltering keys and soft strings accompany gothic reports emanating from the tour van: "Rural scenes and crumbling homes / Shopping centers, illicit trades, anxious moments."

Walton's gentle singing come across in a deadpan style, while this album's intensity arises from the sharp writing—mixing stories, traditional phrases, and blunt diary entries—along with surprising maximalism. Not many songs this year showcase stronger storytelling flair than "Shelly", a piece that depicts the killing of a deer and spirals into a fuel-soaked reckoning, evoking literary pieces illuminated by glimpses of distorted cello. Tense, subdued verses featuring echoing, plucked strings transition to expansive choruses, with her vocals digitally manipulated into something all-knowing and menacing.

Audiences may previously know the artist as an electronic producer, disc jockey, and member to bands such as Caroline. Daughters' musical twists reflect this diverse background. The first track "Sometimes" erupts with flourish, like a string band taken by surprise, whereas "Born Again Backwards" radically increases the tempo with an intense, beautiful, looping percussion. Dense layers of audio, expertly produced with a long-term collaborator, seem both rough and ethereal, and her dark, enchanted thinking culminate in highlight "Lambs", a song that momentarily becomes a twirling jig. "May your life never end in death," she bargains, with poignant gallows humor.