🔗 Share this article

In this song "Miss America", audiences are placed inside a hotel room close to JFK airport, where the musician receives a devastating update of her father's illness diagnosis. The UK-raised artist was touring America for the first time, playing alongside group Kero Kero Bonito, when abruptly grief takes over, coloring everything in grey. Faltering piano and soft orchestration accompany dark reports emanating from the tour van: "Rural scenes and crumbling homes / Shopping centers, illicit trades, anxious moments."

Walton's soft vocals are delivered in a flat manner, while the album's tension stems from her keen writing—mixing stories, folksy sayings, and direct diary entries—along with unexpected rich textures. Few tracks this year possess stronger storytelling flair compared to "Shelly", a piece that depicts the killing of a deer and descends toward a petrol-laden confrontation, evoking literary works illuminated with flickers of warped strings. Anxious, subdued sections featuring resonating, plucked strings move to expansive refrains, and Walton's vocals digitally manipulated to become a presence all-knowing and sinister.

Audiences may previously know Walton as a music creator, disc jockey, and contributor to bands such as Caroline. The album's musical twists reflect her varied background. The opener "Sometimes" erupts with flourish, like a string band caught unawares, whereas "Born Again Backwards" radically increases the BPM via an intense, beautiful, looping percussion. Thick walls of sound, expertly produced with a longtime collaborator, feel at once rough and ethereal, and Walton's morbid, enchanted thoughts culminate in highlight "Lambs", a song that momentarily becomes a swirling dance. "May your life never end in death," she pleads, exuding poignant gallows humor.