Jennifer Walton's First Album "Daughters" Delves Into Grief and Style
Within the track "Miss America", audiences are placed in a lodging close to JFK airfield, as the musician receives a devastating update of her father's cancer discovery. This Sunderland-born artist was traveling America on her initial visit, drumming with group Kero Kero Bonito, and suddenly sadness takes over, coloring everything in grey. Faltering piano and soft strings accompany gothic dispatches from the road: "Cattle farm and broke down shack / Strip-mall, drug deal, panic attacks."
Walton's soft vocals come across in a deadpan manner, while this record's intensity arises from the keen penmanship—blending stories, traditional phrases, and blunt diary entries—along with surprising maximalism. Not many songs recently possess more potent novelistic style compared to "Shelly", which describes the killing of an animal and descends toward a fuel-soaked reckoning, evoking literary works lit by glimpses of distorted strings. Tense, quiet sections featuring resonating, plucked strings move into grand choruses, with her voice electronically altered into something all-knowing and menacing.
Listeners may already be familiar with Walton from her work as a music creator, disc jockey, and contributor in groups like Caroline. The album's sonic turns reflect her varied career. The first track "Sometimes" bursts with fanfare, as if an ensemble caught by surprise, whereas "Born Again Backwards" radically increases the BPM via an intense, stunning, repeating drum fill. Thick walls of sound, skillfully mixed with a long-term partner, feel at once gnarly and spiritual, while her morbid, enchanted thinking peak on standout "Lambs", a song that momentarily transforms into a swirling dance. "I hope your existence doesn't conclude with dying," Walton pleads, exuding heart-aching gallows humor.
