🔗 Share this article Jennifer Walton's Debut Album "Daughters" Explores Grief and Elegance In this track "Miss America", audiences find themselves inside a hotel room near JFK airfield, where the musician receives the devastating news of her father's illness discovery. This Sunderland-born performer was traveling the US for the first time, drumming alongside group Kero Kero Bonito, and suddenly sadness casts a shadow, tinging everything in grey. Unsteady keys and hushed orchestration underscore gothic dispatches emanating from the road: "Cattle farm and broke down shack / Strip-mall, drug deal, panic attacks." Walton's soft singing come across in a flat style, while the record's tension stems from her keen writing—mixing stories, folksy sayings, and blunt diary entries—along with surprising maximalism. Not many tracks recently possess more potent storytelling flair compared to "Shelly", which depicts the death of a deer and descends toward a petrol-laden reckoning, evoking written pieces illuminated by flickers of warped cello. Tense, subdued sections with resonating, strummed strings move into grand choruses, with Walton's voice digitally manipulated into a presence omniscient and menacing. Listeners might already be familiar with Walton from her work as a music creator, DJ, and contributor to bands like Caroline. The album's musical twists draw on her diverse background. The opener "Sometimes" erupts with flourish, as if a string band caught unawares, while "Born Again Backwards" drastically increases the BPM via a punishing, stunning, repeating percussion. Thick walls of sound, expertly mixed with a long-term partner, seem both gnarly and spiritual, and her morbid, magical thinking peak on highlight "Lambs", which briefly transforms into a swirling dance. "I hope your existence doesn't conclude with dying," she bargains, exuding poignant gallows humor.