The trio we love for making us miserable are back with another achingly absorbing album. Not To Disappear is the second release from British brooders Daughter, and if their 2013 debut unhemmed your heart with its wistful, haunting melodies, you’re a goner for this new ten track effort.
Opener New Ways conjures an apocalyptic landscape with a sparse beat, ambient haze and wailing lo-fi guitars. It’s a fitting welcome to an album oozing with eerie, expansive sounds and big picture musings on loss, love and loneliness.
Early single Numbers surges with energy as Elena Tonra’s ghostly vocals drift over tribal drums. To Be Alone / With You pulses with synths and biting lyrics, while No Care offers a reprieve from all the pensiveness, pairing a rollicking snare rhythm with spitfire, monotone vocals.
Nothing else packs the emotional punch of Doing The Right Thing, though, where Tonra’s fragile vocals and portrait of a woman with dementia is nothing short of gut-wrenching: “I have lost my children / I have lost my love / I just sit in silence.”
The swelling drama and despondence of Not to Disappear could be overwhelming for some, but if you allow yourself to drift with the spacy guitars, synths and vocals, it’s a nourishing sequence of songs.
BY JENNIFER HODDINETT
