Daughter Stuns with Heartwrenching “Not to Disappear”
Imagine if Sylvia Plath had been a songwriter, putting those all consuming dark black emotions to shimmering, almost grungy guitar and synth arrangements and singing in the most angelic voice. This, in a nutshell, is British band Daughter, and on their newest record Not to Disappear, they hit their darkest notes yet.
Lead singer Elena Tonra brings her haunting, otherworldly tone to songs about being alone, depressed, isolated, brokenhearted and stuck. It may sound like a bummer, but when the melodies are as lovely as these, you may instead find yourself nodding your head along to the lavish instrumentals and losing yourself in them. “I’ve been tryin’ to get out/Find a subtle way out/Not just cross myself out/Not just disappear,” Tonra sings on “New Ways”, amidst Remi Aguilella’s quietly impactful drums and Igor Haefeli’s soaring guitar. This is a highlight on Disappear, an opening song that lets you know what you’re in for the rest of the way.
On “Mothers”, she tackles childbirth and motherhood as a kind of inevitable tragedy. “You’ll grow all you need to grow inside my spine/And then take what you need to take/What’s yours is mine/And then just give all you want of it/To some new thing/I’ll stay here/The provider of that constant sting they call love,” she sings. This is heavy stuff, but it is also magnetic and heavenly. Even if you cannot immediately relate, you still feel connected to the songs on Disappear through Tonra’s hypnotizing sound.
Lyrically, Daughter does not tread lightly, and though most of the record maintains a steady restraint in pace and volume, there are rare harder moments that leave you winded. Specifically, the driving “No Care” is an ass-kicker of a breakup song – uninhibited, frustrated and freeing. In fact, Disappear would make an excellent companion record to Sharon Van Etten’s 2014 stunner Are We There.
Unplugged and stripped bare of their celestial instrumental arrangements, many of the songs on Disappear are just deeply personal folk songs. These are intensely focused and deftly crafted poems about how painful and difficult it is to be human. Daughter is best when Tonra lets out her astounding wail with such grace and control, it could bring you to tears. “Made of Stone”, and the Portishead/Garbage esque “Numbers” are standouts. “I feel numb in this kingdom,” Tonra sings on the latter, but listening to this dreamy record, such a feeling is impossible.