🔗 Share this article Jennifer Walton's Debut Album "Daughters" Explores Grief and Style In this track "Miss America", audiences find themselves inside a hotel room close to JFK airport, where the musician receives the heartbreaking update that her dad has illness diagnosis. The UK-raised performer had been traveling the US for the first time, drumming with group Kero Kero Bonito, when suddenly grief takes over, tinging all in grey. Faltering piano and soft orchestration underscore dark dispatches emanating from the tour van: "Cattle farm and broke down shack / Shopping centers, illicit trades, anxious moments." Walton's gentle singing come across in a flat manner, yet the album's tension stems from her keen penmanship—mixing stories, folksy sayings, and blunt diary entries—coupled with unexpected rich textures. Few songs recently possess more potent novelistic style compared to "Shelly", a piece that describes the killing of an animal and spirals toward a petrol-laden confrontation, evoking literary pieces illuminated by glimpses of distorted cello. Tense, quiet verses with echoing, strummed guitar move to grand refrains, and her vocals digitally manipulated to become something omniscient and sinister. Listeners may previously know Walton as an electronic producer, disc jockey, and contributor to bands like Caroline. The album's sonic turns draw on this varied career. The first track "Sometimes" erupts in flourish, as if a string band taken unawares, while "Born Again Backwards" drastically ups the tempo via an intense, stunning, looping percussion. Thick walls of sound, expertly produced with a longtime collaborator, seem at once rough and spiritual, while her morbid, enchanted thinking culminate on highlight "Lambs", which momentarily transforms into a twirling jig. "May your life never end in death," Walton bargains, exuding poignant dark comedy.