Jennifer Walton's First Album "Daughters" Delves Into Grief and Elegance
In this song "Miss America", listeners are placed inside a hotel room close to JFK airport, where Jennifer Walton receives a devastating update that her dad has cancer diagnosis. The Sunderland-born performer had been touring America on her initial visit, playing with indie band Kero Kero Bonito, and suddenly sadness takes over, coloring everything with melancholy. Faltering keys and soft strings underscore gothic dispatches from the road: "Rural scenes and crumbling homes / Strip-mall, drug deal, panic attacks."
Walton's soft vocals are delivered in a flat manner, while the record's intensity arises from the keen writing—blending fiction, traditional phrases, and blunt diary entries—along with surprising rich textures. Not many songs this year possess more potent novelistic flair than "Shelly", a piece that describes the killing of an animal and descends into a fuel-soaked reckoning, reminiscent of literary pieces illuminated by flickers of distorted cello. Anxious, subdued verses featuring echoing, plucked guitar move to grand choruses, and Walton's voice electronically altered into something all-knowing and sinister.
Audiences might already know the artist from her work as a music creator, disc jockey, and contributor in groups such as Caroline. Daughters' sonic turns reflect this varied career. The opener "Sometimes" bursts in flourish, as if a string band taken by surprise, whereas "Born Again Backwards" radically increases the tempo with a punishing, stunning, repeating percussion. Dense walls of sound, skillfully mixed with a longtime partner, seem at once gnarly and ethereal, while Walton's morbid, magical thoughts peak in standout "Lambs", a song that briefly transforms into a twirling dance. "May your life never end in death," Walton pleads, with poignant gallows humor.
