The First Album "Daughters" Explores Grief and Style
Within the song "Miss America", audiences are placed inside a hotel room near JFK airfield, where the musician receives a heartbreaking news that her dad has cancer discovery. The Sunderland-born artist was traveling the US on her initial visit, drumming alongside group Kero Kero Bonito, and suddenly sadness casts a shadow, coloring all with melancholy. Faltering keys and hushed orchestration underscore gothic dispatches from the tour van: "Cattle farm and broke down shack / Strip-mall, drug deal, panic attacks."
Her soft singing are delivered with a deadpan style, yet this album's intensity arises from her keen writing—mixing stories, traditional phrases, and blunt personal notes—along with unexpected rich textures. Few songs recently showcase more potent novelistic flair compared to "Shelly", which depicts the death of an animal and descends toward a petrol-laden reckoning, evoking literary works lit with glimpses of warped cello. Tense, quiet sections with resonating, plucked strings transition into grand refrains, and her voice digitally manipulated to become a presence all-knowing and sinister.
Audiences may previously be familiar with Walton from her work as an electronic producer, DJ, and member to bands like Caroline. Daughters' sonic turns draw on her varied background. The opener "Sometimes" bursts in fanfare, like an ensemble caught by surprise, while "Born Again Backwards" radically ups the BPM with a punishing, stunning, looping percussion. Dense layers of audio, skillfully produced with a long-term collaborator, seem at once gnarly and ethereal, and Walton's dark, magical thinking peak on highlight "Lambs", which momentarily transforms into a twirling jig. "May your life never end in death," Walton pleads, with poignant dark comedy.
