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In the track "Miss America", listeners find themselves inside a hotel room near JFK airport, as the musician learns the heartbreaking news of her father's illness discovery. This Sunderland-born artist had been touring America for the first time, drumming with indie band Kero Kero Bonito, when suddenly sadness takes over, coloring all with melancholy. Unsteady keys and soft orchestration underscore gothic dispatches from the road: "Cattle farm and broke down shack / Shopping centers, illicit trades, anxious moments."

Her gentle singing come across in a deadpan style, yet this album's intensity stems from her sharp penmanship—mixing fiction, folksy sayings, and direct personal notes—coupled with unexpected rich textures. Few songs this year possess stronger novelistic flair than "Shelly", which describes the death of an animal and descends toward a fuel-soaked reckoning, evoking literary pieces lit with glimpses of distorted strings. Anxious, subdued verses featuring resonating, plucked strings transition to grand choruses, with her vocals digitally manipulated into a presence omniscient and sinister.

Listeners might previously be familiar with the artist from her work as a music creator, disc jockey, and contributor to bands such as Caroline. The album's sonic turns draw on this diverse background. The opener "Sometimes" bursts with flourish, as if a string band caught by surprise, while "Born Again Backwards" radically increases the tempo with a punishing, beautiful, repeating percussion. Dense layers of audio, skillfully mixed by a longtime partner, seem at once rough and ethereal, while Walton's morbid, enchanted thinking peak in standout "Lambs", a song that briefly transforms into a twirling dance. "May your life never end in death," she bargains, exuding heart-aching dark comedy.