Daughter - If You Leave

In trying to find words to describe Daughter to my friends and interested parties, I start off with "imagine if Laura Marling joined The xx". The truth is, they're so much more than that. Yes, Elena Tonra's voice has the soft, intimate tone associated with Laura Marling et al, but it's the work of guitarist Igor Haefeli and drummer Remi Aguilella that set them apart from that cliche. Because frankly, just because Laura Marling is gorgeous and oh-so acoustic, it's just lazy to brand every artist that sounds vaguely like her as "THE NEXT LAURA!" More imagination, please.

There are so many subtleties and nuances to Daughter's music that it's hard to know where to begin. My favourite track on the album is definitely Youth, a heart wrenching song about the pain of losing a lover. It starts with a delicate guitar solo, and as Tonra's voice comes in with "shadows settle on the place that you left" my heart starts melting. Her voice is so ethereal and gentle that it just transports you to a whole different world, there and then. But the credit can't all go to Tonra; the talents of Haefeli and Aguilella can't go unnoticed. Neither the drums nor guitar are there to take centre stage and demand attention - it's very clear from the start that the music is very much about Elena (she wrote all of the lyrics) - but they do such a good job of building up the song around her that it feels so natural for the drums to be kicking in at "it was a flood that wrecked this home, and you caused it"; that certainly isn't a one-woman job. To forget the importance of Haefeli and Aguilella is to forget the entire essence of the album, which is a crime against Daughter.

Frontwoman Elena Tonra

The thing that struck me most about this album was the pain and heartache that ran through it, almost as a unifying theme. Still is the perfect example.The poignancy with which Tonra writes about heartbreak makes you sure that the album has been her way of dealing with it - and at that I just want to give her a massive hug and tuck her into bed with a hot water bottle, because she takes it all upon herself. Take Smother, or Tomorrow. In Smother, she berates herself for the end of the relationship, singing, almost angrily, "in the darkness I will meet my creators, and they will all agree that I'm a suffocator", as though she's still in the what-did-I-do-wrong phase. The music calms down towards the end, as she whispers balefully "oh no, I'm sorry if I smothered you". Tomorrow pleads "don't bring tomorrow, cos I already know I'll lose you". This fatalistic sixth sense Tonra has about the end of relationships is haunts every song on the CD, making it even more beautiful.

This album reaches an emotional level that I didn't even think was possible. Not only does it reach it, but it ascends it in the most elegant and gorgeous way possible.

Rating: 10/10

Recommended tracks:

Amsterdam

Shallows

Human