🔗 Share this article

Within the song "Miss America", listeners are placed in a hotel room near JFK airport, as the musician learns a heartbreaking news that her dad has illness diagnosis. The Sunderland-born performer had been touring the US for the first time, drumming alongside group Kero Kero Bonito, when suddenly sadness casts a shadow, tinging everything with melancholy. Unsteady keys and hushed strings underscore gothic reports emanating from the tour van: "Cattle farm and broke down shack / Strip-mall, drug deal, panic attacks."

Walton's soft vocals are delivered in a deadpan manner, while this record's intensity arises from the keen writing—blending fiction, folksy sayings, and direct personal notes—along with unexpected maximalism. Few songs recently possess stronger storytelling flair compared to "Shelly", a piece that depicts the death of a deer and spirals toward a petrol-laden confrontation, evoking literary pieces lit by flickers of distorted cello. Tense, subdued sections with resonating, strummed guitar transition to grand choruses, with Walton's vocals electronically altered to become a presence omniscient and menacing.

Audiences might already know the artist from her work as an electronic producer, disc jockey, and contributor in groups such as Caroline. The album's musical twists reflect her diverse career. The opener "Sometimes" bursts with flourish, like a string band caught unawares, whereas "Born Again Backwards" radically ups the BPM with an intense, stunning, looping percussion. Thick layers of audio, expertly produced with a long-term collaborator, seem at once rough and spiritual, while her morbid, enchanted thinking peak in standout "Lambs", a song that momentarily becomes a twirling jig. "May your life never end in death," Walton pleads, exuding poignant gallows humor.