🔗 Share this article

In the track "Miss America", audiences find themselves inside a lodging close to JFK airport, as the musician learns the devastating news that her dad has cancer diagnosis. The UK-raised artist had been traveling America for the first time, playing with indie band Kero Kero Bonito, when suddenly sadness takes over, coloring everything with melancholy. Faltering keys and soft orchestration accompany dark dispatches from the road: "Rural scenes and crumbling homes / Shopping centers, illicit trades, anxious moments."

Her gentle vocals come across in a deadpan style, yet the album's intensity stems from her keen writing—mixing fiction, folksy sayings, and direct diary entries—along with surprising rich textures. Not many songs recently possess stronger novelistic flair than "Shelly", which describes the death of an animal and descends toward a petrol-laden confrontation, evoking written works illuminated with flickers of distorted strings. Anxious, quiet sections with resonating, plucked guitar move into grand refrains, with Walton's vocals digitally manipulated to become a presence all-knowing and menacing.

Audiences might previously be familiar with Walton as an electronic producer, disc jockey, and contributor to bands like Caroline. Daughters' musical twists reflect this diverse background. The first track "Sometimes" bursts with flourish, as if an ensemble taken unawares, while "Born Again Backwards" radically increases the tempo via a punishing, beautiful, repeating drum fill. Dense walls of sound, expertly produced by a longtime partner, feel both rough and ethereal, and Walton's morbid, enchanted thinking culminate in highlight "Lambs", a song that momentarily becomes a twirling jig. "I hope your existence doesn't conclude with dying," she bargains, with poignant gallows humor.