Album Review: Daughter - If You Leave

Daughter
If You Leave
Rating: Grrrr

When the first lines of an album are "Drifting apart like two sheets of ice, my love/Frozen hearts growing colder with time," you know you are entering dark and lonely territory. London trio Daughter, led by Elena Tonra, have crafted a debut album that picks over the minutiae of a failed relationship in intimate detail, but never feels overwhelmingly bleak. There is a delicate balance at work here, the softly reverberating guitars and intricate percussion work create a gorgeous sweep of sound that elevates these tracks to sublime beauty. There are touches of The xx's minimal guitar palate, The Innocence Mission's shy naivete, and hints of the legends of their past 4AD label mates Cocteau Twins, Dif Juz, and Mojave 3. Tonra's voice is an evocative instrument that is akin to Florence Welch's dramatic beast, but is far more reigned in and subtle. Daughter don't necessarily sound like any of these bands per se, but they are good stepping off points in comparison. With If You Leave, Daughter rise above their influences and create their own distinct sound.

If You Leave basically looks at what went wrong in a relationship from almost every angle, scrutinizing every aspect of it to figure out what went wrong, veering from anger, regret, sadness, futility, and every other emotion that can possibly be evoked. There is the beginning of the death of love in "Still," Tonra realizing "Hate is spitting out each others mouths/But we're still sleeping like we're lovers,"



anger takes over in the deceptively light "Youth" with the biting lines "And if you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones/Cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone,"



while in "Smother," Tonra regretfully sees that she was overbearing in the relationship, lamenting "I sometimes wish I’d stayed inside my mother/Never to come out,"



While the framework for the tracks comes from a folk-based background, most of the tracks start with Igor Haefeli's simple, yet haunting guitar phrasing, building slowly with more forceful guitar work, subtle electronics, and the amazing percussion work of drummer Remi Aguilella. From the gorgeous opener "Winter" and its fractured guitar lines that erupt into a percussion heavy back end, Tonra's voice becoming more and more forceful reflecting over how thin the line is between love and hate, "And we were in flames, I needed I needed you/To run through my veins, like disease/And now we are strange, strangers,"



to the acoustic guitar rave-up of "Human" where the fallout of the breakup is taking its toll, Tonra exclaiming "despite everything I'm still human
But I think I'm dying here,"



and the devastating closer "Shallows," which grows from stark guitar lines into a swirling cloud of effect heavy guitar chords, finds Tonra "If you leave/When I go/Find me/In the shallows,"



Daughter has an amazing grasp of how to structure a track and keep things dramatic and moving.

If You Leave is a strikingly assured debut from this London trio. Building from an initially minimal backing, transforming the tracks into something otherworldly and weighty, Daughter show that they are in complete control of their sound and themes. This is heavy music that never feels heavy, the band able to work with a variety of moods and textures to keep things interesting, never letting the darkness get too pervasive. If You Leave is simply one of the best records of the year.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and piques one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.