🔗 Share this article

In this track "Miss America", listeners find themselves inside a lodging near JFK airport, as the musician receives a devastating news that her dad has cancer diagnosis. The Sunderland-born performer was traveling America for the first time, playing alongside indie band Kero Kero Bonito, and suddenly grief takes over, coloring all with melancholy. Faltering piano and soft strings underscore dark dispatches from the tour van: "Cattle farm and broke down shack / Strip-mall, drug deal, panic attacks."

Walton's soft vocals are delivered with a deadpan manner, yet this record's tension arises from the sharp penmanship—mixing stories, folksy sayings, and direct diary entries—coupled with surprising rich textures. Few songs recently possess stronger storytelling flair than "Shelly", a piece that describes the death of a deer and descends toward a petrol-laden reckoning, evoking written works lit with flickers of distorted cello. Anxious, quiet sections with resonating, strummed guitar move into expansive refrains, with Walton's voice digitally manipulated into something omniscient and sinister.

Audiences might previously be familiar with Walton as an electronic producer, disc jockey, and contributor to bands such as Caroline. Daughters' musical twists draw on her diverse background. The opener "Sometimes" erupts in flourish, as if a string band caught unawares, whereas "Born Again Backwards" drastically increases the tempo with an intense, stunning, repeating percussion. Dense walls of sound, skillfully produced with a longtime collaborator, feel at once gnarly and ethereal, while Walton's dark, enchanted thinking culminate in highlight "Lambs", a song that momentarily becomes a twirling dance. "I hope your existence doesn't conclude with dying," she bargains, exuding poignant dark comedy.