🔗 Share this article

Within this song "Miss America", audiences are placed in a lodging close to JFK airport, as the musician learns the devastating news that her dad has cancer discovery. The Sunderland-born artist was touring the US on her initial visit, playing with group Kero Kero Bonito, and abruptly sadness casts a shadow, tinging all with melancholy. Faltering piano and hushed strings underscore dark dispatches from the tour van: "Cattle farm and broke down shack / Shopping centers, illicit trades, anxious moments."

Her gentle singing are delivered with a deadpan manner, while this album's intensity stems from the keen penmanship—blending stories, folksy sayings, and direct diary entries—along with surprising maximalism. Few songs this year possess more potent novelistic flair than "Shelly", a piece that depicts the killing of a deer and descends into a petrol-laden confrontation, reminiscent of literary pieces lit by flickers of distorted cello. Anxious, quiet verses with echoing, strummed strings move into grand refrains, and Walton's voice digitally manipulated into something omniscient and menacing.

Listeners might already be familiar with Walton as a music creator, disc jockey, and contributor in groups like Caroline. The album's musical twists reflect this varied background. The first track "Sometimes" bursts in fanfare, like a string band caught by surprise, while "Born Again Backwards" radically increases the tempo via a punishing, beautiful, looping percussion. Dense walls of sound, skillfully produced with a long-term collaborator, seem both rough and spiritual, while Walton's dark, magical thinking culminate in standout "Lambs", a song that briefly transforms into a twirling jig. "I hope your existence doesn't conclude with dying," she bargains, with heart-aching gallows humor.