Two tracks in, Daughter’s “Numbers” abruptly halts as frontwoman Elena Tonra coldly mumbles “I feel numb / I feel numb in this kingdom.” These lines, coupled with Tonra’s icy delivery, perfectly sum up the album’s frigid atmosphere. The record ponders life, love (and the lack-thereof) and the hopelessness of the future, all veiled in a bleakly beautiful ambience.
Daughter hasn’t exactly made the feel-good album of the decade with “Not to Disappear.” It occasionally trips over its own excessive melodrama, but is a worthy companion to a reflective walk during this bitter winter.
Lyrically, the record is neither a collection of love songs nor a break-up album, but rather a criticism of modern conceptions of love. At times, Tonra’s lyrics contain valid concerns. The incessant “Be what you want / I can be what you want” and ensuing self-hatred of “Fossa” — the album’s ninth track — addresses the pain of molding yourself to another person.
Similarly, moments like “I think we are all / Built out of memories / Built out of seams” in “Made of Stone” deconstruct the perfect love stories Disney has been imparting for decades.
There are a few moments, however, when the melodrama falls flat on its face, especially in the lyrically awkward “Alone / With you.” The song’s verses mirror each other in an attempt to show how relationships and being alone suffer from the same problems, but it only comes off as whiney. It’s not helped by lines like “I should get a dog or something,” which stick out like a sore thumb.
The album’s highlight — “Doing the Right Thing” — steps away from these lyrical tropes to hone in on the worst way to disappear: Alzheimer’s disease. For anyone who has watched a loved one slowly lose their sense of being in a nursing home, Tonra’s repeated “Let the pictures soak / Out of televisions” is a painfully accurate depiction of life in the disease’s final stages. Only a shell of a person remains, watching TV everyday only to be wheeled away and forget everything they watched.
It’s moments like these where “Not to Disappear” is at its most poignant — utilizing simple, familiar imagery to stab barbed icicles through the listener’s heart.
Tonra never sounds far off from a pale ghost of a woman grasping at the once familiar warmth of life. Her vocals form the real backbone of the record, crafting haunting melodies which echo the likes of Chelsea Wolfe.
The accompanying music is a natural extension of Tonra’s vocals, delivering the same cold beauty through reverb-soaked guitar lines and a carefully restrained rhythm section. The one outlier to this formula is “No Care,” where the band dares to inject a pulse into their music. Its rapid electronic beat pitted against fast and venomous vocals immediately stands out at first listen.
Outside of “No Care” and bits of “Fossa,” the rest of the album initially blends together into a slow, hazy fog of depression and indifference. It takes a few spins to unravel its subtleties and melodies, but Daughter’s second full-length album is well worth investing in. Its emotions are difficult to pinpoint and even harder to connect with, but given the proper time, it will certainly be possible to bond with the album.
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