🔗 Share this article

In the song "Miss America", listeners find themselves inside a lodging close to JFK airfield, as the musician receives the heartbreaking news of her father's illness diagnosis. The Sunderland-born performer had been traveling the US for the first time, drumming alongside group Kero Kero Bonito, and suddenly grief casts a shadow, coloring everything in grey. Unsteady keys and hushed strings accompany dark reports from the tour van: "Cattle farm and broke down shack / Shopping centers, illicit trades, anxious moments."

Walton's gentle singing come across with a flat manner, yet the album's tension arises from her keen penmanship—mixing fiction, folksy sayings, and direct personal notes—along with unexpected rich textures. Not many songs recently possess more potent novelistic style compared to "Shelly", a piece that describes the death of an animal and spirals toward a petrol-laden reckoning, reminiscent of written pieces lit by glimpses of warped strings. Tense, quiet sections with echoing, plucked strings move to grand refrains, and Walton's voice electronically altered to become something all-knowing and menacing.

Audiences may already know the artist as an electronic producer, disc jockey, and member to bands like Caroline. The album's sonic turns reflect this varied background. The opener "Sometimes" erupts with fanfare, like an ensemble caught unawares, whereas "Born Again Backwards" drastically increases the tempo with a punishing, stunning, repeating drum fill. Dense layers of audio, expertly produced with a longtime collaborator, seem both gnarly and spiritual, and Walton's dark, magical thoughts peak on standout "Lambs", which momentarily transforms into a swirling jig. "May your life never end in death," she pleads, exuding poignant gallows humor.