Review Summary: Damn.
This is it then. An indisputable to-be apple in the eye of many listeners compiling annual best of lists two months from now. A genuine delight in a year mostly fraught with efforts that so far left an overall quite lukewarm impression on my part. I'm glad to finally be relieved from doubt that such a list of my own would be left standing without a clear winner.
Daughters' new descent into pitch black sickness picks up from a self-titled noise rock stunner in which all the right creative decisions were made, and have now been expanded upon. A sharpened eye for arrangements and further engagement with a wide-ranging array of synthesized sounds is beautifully realized on just about every track; boldly pursued and confidently harbored. Moreover expanding upon industrial narratives conjured up by the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Ministry and early Swans. It is, saying the least, a heavy hitter. Mentally no less than physically. And yet amidst the dense getup of fuzzy electronics, distorted guitars, crashing percussion and a steadily hostile mood hell-bent on abusing its audience, the intent to appeal to it is just as strong. ”The Reason They Hate Me” has Alexis Marshall stating a sure case that nobody tells him how to do his job over an infectious 4/4 beat which sticks to your mind just as surely as his notion of work etiquette remains unchallenged. A recurring theme on the slow moving ”Less Sex” would sit just as well in a title sequence for just about any moderately somber TV-series (yes, really) as within the context of a discordant noise rock record. It's one of many highlights establishing a new set of dynamics that make for the great sense of flow with which the album stands out among its predecessors. The eight year gap really did ripen the apple.
Punks are still getting down to business, there's no doubt. Only the punks seem to have matured into something even less conventional, more expansive and dead set on danger - plunging head first into the realm of the truly avant-garde. Pretty risky business for a punk band. Yet at the end of the day it's not, really. Maybe it's the most punk thing they could have done. Devout listeners might not get what they want, but I have a feeling they might just get something they didn't even know they wanted. It takes balls to sidestep in this bold a fashion and Daughters just grew an extra pair.
