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In the track "Miss America", audiences are placed inside a hotel room near JFK airport, as Jennifer Walton learns the heartbreaking news that her dad has cancer diagnosis. This UK-raised artist was touring the US for the first time, drumming alongside group Kero Kero Bonito, and suddenly grief casts a shadow, coloring all in grey. Faltering piano and soft strings accompany gothic dispatches from the road: "Cattle farm and broke down shack / Shopping centers, illicit trades, anxious moments."

Her gentle vocals are delivered in a deadpan style, while the record's intensity arises from her sharp penmanship—mixing fiction, traditional phrases, and direct personal notes—along with unexpected rich textures. Few songs this year possess more potent novelistic style than "Shelly", which depicts the killing of an animal and spirals toward a petrol-laden reckoning, evoking literary pieces lit with glimpses of warped strings. Tense, subdued verses featuring echoing, plucked strings move to expansive refrains, and her voice digitally manipulated to become a presence omniscient and menacing.

Audiences might already know the artist from her work as an electronic producer, DJ, and member in groups such as Caroline. The album's musical twists draw on this varied background. The opener "Sometimes" erupts with flourish, as if a string band taken unawares, while "Born Again Backwards" radically ups the BPM with an intense, stunning, looping percussion. Dense walls of sound, skillfully produced by a long-term collaborator, seem at once rough and ethereal, while Walton's morbid, magical thinking peak on highlight "Lambs", which briefly transforms into a twirling dance. "May your life never end in death," Walton pleads, with heart-aching dark comedy.