ALBUM REVIEW: Daughters, “You Won’t Get What You Want”

By: Charlie Butler

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 26/10/2018

Label: Ipecac Recordings

Daughters are making noise rock that sounds like it has been beamed back to the present from a million years in the future. "You Won't Get What You Want" is an incredible album that casually destroys all peers and reminds everyone who is in charge.

“You Won’t Get What You Want” CD//DD//2LP track listing:

1. City Song
2. Long Road No Turns
3. Satan In The Wait
4. The Flammable Man
5. The Lords Song
6. Less Sex
7. Daughter
8. The Reason They Hate Me
9. Ocean Song
10. Guest House

The Review:

The mere existence of a new LP from notorious Rhode Island miscreants Daughters in 2018 is cause for celebration. The fact that "You Won't Get What You Want" is the quartet's first album since 2010 yet somehow manages to continue the band's wildly chaotic tradition of reinvention and innovation is nothing short of a miracle. 

The record kicks off deep in alien territory with the unsettling claustrophobia of "City Song". The ominous thud of sparse drums, a wash of crackling low-end fuzz and Alexis Marshall's spooked drawl combine to create an air of inescapable anxiety that sounds more like “Liars” than anything from the Hydra Head catalogue. As the dread builds, guitars create a sharp, piercing squall akin to being attacked with a dentist's drill. It's devastating start to a wild and tense ride through constantly shifting sonic terrain. 

Following this storming entrance it's obvious that Daughters have maintained their uncompromising approach but found new ways to torment the listener. "Ocean Song" takes the template of "City Song" and draws it out into a relentless pound that builds in volume in intensity to its savage conclusion. The dustbowl twang of "Daughter" builds up to a climax of twinkling synths that could almost be described as pretty while "Satan In The Wait" manages to combine uneasy tension with bursts of hypnotic melody.

Every track on "You Won't Get What You Want" seems to demonstrate that Daughters have an almost bottomless pit of inspiration to draw upon. Even songs like the weirdly funky "Less Sex" which sounds like sinister minimal r'n'b being mauled by HEALTH work and feel totally at home on this record next to the more gnarly, frenetic moments. "The Flammable Man" is a whirlwind two minute reminder of the bands hyperactive past while the menacing churn of "Long Road No Turns" acts as the conduit from their back catalogue to their current incarnation. "The Lords Song" and "The Reason They Hate Me" even come close to resembling something like conventional punk rock, albeit a queasy, shambling repetitive thrash like Pissed Jeans at their most unkempt.

There are many bands out there making noise rock that take influence from the past and bend it into weird new forms. Daughters are making noise rock that sounds like it has been beamed back to the present from a million years in the future. "You Won't Get What You Want" is an incredible album that casually destroys all peers and reminds everyone who is in charge.

“You Won’t Get What You Want” is available here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook