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Within this song "Miss America", audiences are placed inside a hotel room near JFK airfield, where the musician receives the devastating news that her dad has illness discovery. This Sunderland-born performer was traveling America on her initial visit, playing alongside group Kero Kero Bonito, when suddenly grief casts a shadow, coloring everything with melancholy. Faltering piano and hushed strings underscore dark dispatches from the road: "Cattle farm and broke down shack / Strip-mall, drug deal, panic attacks."

Her soft vocals come across in a deadpan style, while this album's tension stems from the keen penmanship—blending fiction, traditional phrases, and blunt diary entries—along with unexpected maximalism. Not many tracks this year showcase stronger novelistic flair than "Shelly", a piece that depicts the death of a deer and descends toward a fuel-soaked reckoning, evoking written works lit by flickers of distorted cello. Anxious, subdued verses featuring resonating, strummed strings move into expansive refrains, and her vocals electronically altered to become something omniscient and sinister.

Audiences might previously know Walton as a music creator, DJ, and member in groups such as Caroline. The album's musical twists draw on her varied career. The first track "Sometimes" erupts with flourish, like an ensemble caught unawares, while "Born Again Backwards" drastically increases the tempo with an intense, stunning, looping drum fill. Dense layers of audio, expertly produced with a long-term partner, seem at once gnarly and ethereal, and Walton's dark, magical thinking culminate in standout "Lambs", which momentarily becomes a swirling jig. "I hope your existence doesn't conclude with dying," she pleads, with poignant gallows humor.