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Within this track "Miss America", listeners find themselves in a lodging near JFK airfield, where Jennifer Walton receives a heartbreaking update of her father's illness diagnosis. The UK-raised artist had been traveling America for the first time, playing alongside indie band Kero Kero Bonito, when abruptly sadness takes over, coloring all with melancholy. Unsteady piano and soft orchestration accompany dark reports from the tour van: "Rural scenes and crumbling homes / Strip-mall, drug deal, panic attacks."

Walton's gentle vocals are delivered in a deadpan manner, while the record's intensity arises from her sharp penmanship—blending fiction, traditional phrases, and direct personal notes—along with surprising maximalism. Few songs this year possess stronger novelistic style than "Shelly", a piece that depicts the death of an animal and descends into a fuel-soaked reckoning, evoking literary works illuminated by flickers of distorted cello. Anxious, subdued verses featuring resonating, plucked strings transition into grand refrains, and Walton's vocals digitally manipulated to become a presence all-knowing and menacing.

Audiences might already know the artist from her work as an electronic producer, disc jockey, and contributor to bands like Caroline. Daughters' musical twists draw on her varied career. The opener "Sometimes" bursts with flourish, like an ensemble taken by surprise, whereas "Born Again Backwards" drastically ups the tempo via an intense, beautiful, looping percussion. Dense walls of sound, skillfully mixed by a longtime partner, feel at once gnarly and spiritual, while her morbid, magical thinking culminate on standout "Lambs", a song that briefly becomes a twirling jig. "May your life never end in death," she bargains, with poignant dark comedy.