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Within this song "Miss America", listeners find themselves inside a hotel room near JFK airfield, where the musician learns a devastating news that her dad has cancer discovery. The Sunderland-born artist had been touring America on her initial visit, drumming alongside indie band Kero Kero Bonito, and suddenly grief casts a shadow, tinging all with melancholy. Faltering piano and hushed orchestration accompany dark dispatches from the tour van: "Rural scenes and crumbling homes / Strip-mall, drug deal, panic attacks."

Her soft vocals come across in a flat manner, yet the record's tension arises from the sharp writing—mixing fiction, folksy sayings, and blunt diary entries—coupled with surprising maximalism. Not many tracks this year possess more potent novelistic style compared to "Shelly", a piece that describes the killing of an animal and spirals toward a petrol-laden reckoning, evoking literary pieces illuminated by glimpses of warped strings. Anxious, subdued sections featuring resonating, strummed guitar transition into grand refrains, with her vocals electronically altered into something omniscient and menacing.

Audiences may previously know Walton as a music creator, disc jockey, and member in groups like Caroline. Daughters' musical twists reflect her varied career. The first track "Sometimes" erupts in flourish, as if an ensemble taken by surprise, whereas "Born Again Backwards" drastically increases the BPM via a punishing, stunning, repeating drum fill. Thick walls of sound, skillfully produced by a long-term collaborator, seem at once rough and spiritual, and Walton's morbid, magical thoughts culminate in highlight "Lambs", a song that briefly becomes a swirling dance. "May your life never end in death," Walton bargains, with poignant dark comedy.