The First Record "Daughters" Explores Grief and Style
Within this song "Miss America", listeners are placed inside a hotel room close to JFK airfield, where Jennifer Walton learns the heartbreaking news of her father's cancer discovery. The Sunderland-born performer was touring America for the first time, drumming alongside group Kero Kero Bonito, and suddenly sadness casts a shadow, tinging all with melancholy. Faltering piano and soft orchestration accompany gothic dispatches from the tour van: "Rural scenes and crumbling homes / Strip-mall, drug deal, panic attacks."
Walton's soft singing are delivered with a deadpan manner, yet the record's intensity stems from the keen penmanship—blending stories, traditional phrases, and direct diary entries—along with unexpected rich textures. Few songs recently showcase stronger novelistic style than "Shelly", a piece that depicts the death of an animal and spirals toward a petrol-laden confrontation, reminiscent of written works illuminated with flickers of distorted cello. Anxious, subdued verses with resonating, plucked strings transition into grand refrains, and her voice electronically altered into something omniscient and menacing.
Audiences might previously know Walton as a music creator, DJ, and contributor to bands like Caroline. Daughters' musical twists draw on this diverse career. The first track "Sometimes" bursts in flourish, as if a string band taken unawares, while "Born Again Backwards" drastically increases the tempo via an intense, beautiful, looping drum fill. Dense layers of audio, expertly mixed by a longtime partner, feel at once rough and ethereal, while her morbid, magical thoughts culminate on standout "Lambs", a song that momentarily becomes a twirling jig. "I hope your existence doesn't conclude with dying," Walton pleads, with heart-aching dark comedy.
