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Within the song "Miss America", audiences are placed in a lodging close to JFK airfield, where the musician receives a heartbreaking update that her dad has cancer diagnosis. This UK-raised artist was touring the US for the first time, drumming with indie band Kero Kero Bonito, and suddenly grief casts a shadow, tinging everything with melancholy. Unsteady piano and soft strings accompany gothic reports from the road: "Rural scenes and crumbling homes / Shopping centers, illicit trades, anxious moments."

Walton's gentle vocals come across in a deadpan manner, yet this album's tension arises from the keen writing—blending fiction, folksy sayings, and direct personal notes—along with surprising maximalism. Not many tracks this year possess more potent novelistic flair compared to "Shelly", which describes the killing of a deer and spirals toward a petrol-laden reckoning, evoking written pieces lit with glimpses of warped strings. Tense, subdued verses with echoing, plucked guitar transition into expansive refrains, and Walton's voice electronically altered into a presence omniscient and menacing.

Listeners might previously know Walton as an electronic producer, DJ, and member in groups like Caroline. Daughters' musical twists draw on this varied career. The first track "Sometimes" bursts in fanfare, like an ensemble taken unawares, while "Born Again Backwards" radically ups the tempo via a punishing, beautiful, looping drum fill. Dense layers of audio, expertly mixed with a longtime collaborator, seem both gnarly and ethereal, and her morbid, magical thoughts culminate in highlight "Lambs", which briefly becomes a swirling dance. "I hope your existence doesn't conclude with dying," she pleads, exuding poignant dark comedy.