Jennifer Walton's First Album "Daughters" Delves Into Sorrow and Elegance

Within the track "Miss America", audiences are placed inside a hotel room near JFK airfield, as Jennifer Walton learns the heartbreaking news of her father's cancer diagnosis. The UK-raised performer was traveling the US for the first time, drumming alongside group Kero Kero Bonito, and suddenly grief casts a shadow, tinging everything with melancholy. Unsteady piano and soft orchestration accompany gothic dispatches from the tour van: "Cattle farm and broke down shack / Shopping centers, illicit trades, anxious moments."

Her gentle vocals come across in a flat style, while the record's tension arises from her keen penmanship—mixing stories, traditional phrases, and blunt diary entries—along with surprising maximalism. Few tracks recently possess stronger novelistic style compared to "Shelly", a piece that depicts the killing of an animal and descends toward a fuel-soaked reckoning, evoking written pieces lit by flickers of warped strings. Tense, quiet sections with echoing, plucked strings transition to expansive choruses, and Walton's vocals electronically altered to become a presence omniscient and menacing.

Audiences might already be familiar with Walton as a music creator, DJ, and contributor in groups such as Caroline. Daughters' musical twists draw on this varied career. The first track "Sometimes" erupts with flourish, as if an ensemble taken by surprise, while "Born Again Backwards" drastically ups the tempo via an intense, stunning, repeating drum fill. Thick walls of sound, expertly mixed with a long-term partner, feel at once gnarly and spiritual, and Walton's morbid, enchanted thinking peak on standout "Lambs", a song that briefly becomes a swirling dance. "May your life never end in death," Walton pleads, with heart-aching dark comedy.