🔗 Share this article

Within the song "Miss America", audiences are placed inside a lodging near JFK airport, where the musician learns a heartbreaking news of her father's illness discovery. The UK-raised performer was traveling America on her initial visit, drumming alongside group Kero Kero Bonito, and abruptly sadness takes over, tinging all with melancholy. Unsteady piano and hushed strings accompany gothic dispatches from the tour van: "Rural scenes and crumbling homes / Shopping centers, illicit trades, anxious moments."

Walton's gentle vocals are delivered with a flat style, while the record's intensity stems from her keen writing—blending stories, traditional phrases, and blunt personal notes—along with unexpected rich textures. Few songs this year showcase more potent novelistic style than "Shelly", a piece that describes the killing of an animal and spirals toward a petrol-laden confrontation, reminiscent of written pieces illuminated with flickers of warped cello. Anxious, quiet verses with echoing, plucked strings transition to expansive refrains, with her voice digitally manipulated to become something omniscient and menacing.

Listeners may already know Walton as an electronic producer, DJ, and contributor in groups such as Caroline. Daughters' musical twists reflect this diverse background. The first track "Sometimes" erupts in flourish, like a string band caught unawares, while "Born Again Backwards" radically ups the BPM via a punishing, stunning, repeating drum fill. Dense walls of sound, skillfully mixed with a longtime partner, seem at once gnarly and spiritual, and her dark, magical thoughts culminate in standout "Lambs", a song that briefly transforms into a swirling dance. "I hope your existence doesn't conclude with dying," Walton pleads, with poignant dark comedy.