Jennifer Walton's First Album "Daughters" Explores Grief and Style
In this song "Miss America", listeners are placed in a lodging near JFK airport, where Jennifer Walton receives a devastating update of her father's cancer diagnosis. The Sunderland-born performer had been touring the US on her initial visit, drumming alongside indie band Kero Kero Bonito, when suddenly sadness takes over, tinging all with melancholy. Unsteady piano and soft orchestration accompany gothic dispatches from the road: "Cattle farm and broke down shack / Shopping centers, illicit trades, anxious moments."
Walton's gentle singing are delivered in a flat manner, yet the album's intensity arises from the sharp writing—blending stories, folksy sayings, and blunt personal notes—along with unexpected rich textures. Not many songs this year possess stronger storytelling flair than "Shelly", which describes the death of a deer and descends toward a petrol-laden reckoning, evoking written works lit with flickers of distorted strings. Tense, subdued sections featuring echoing, strummed strings move to grand choruses, and Walton's voice digitally manipulated to become a presence all-knowing and sinister.
Audiences might already be familiar with Walton as an electronic producer, DJ, and member in groups such as Caroline. The album's musical twists draw on this varied background. The first track "Sometimes" erupts with fanfare, like an ensemble taken by surprise, while "Born Again Backwards" drastically increases the BPM via an intense, beautiful, looping drum fill. Dense walls of sound, expertly mixed with a long-term partner, seem at once rough and spiritual, and Walton's dark, enchanted thinking peak in highlight "Lambs", a song that momentarily becomes a twirling dance. "I hope your existence doesn't conclude with dying," she pleads, with heart-aching dark comedy.
