Review Summary: Beyond bargaining
Indie trio Daughter have produced two strong albums before
Stereo Mind Game, but they suffered from a certain leadenness at times which curtailed the potential of the songs. Listening to previous effort
Not to disappear had me wondering if some tracks had enough bone strength to support every diarised thought that apparently
had to make it in. On this, their third full length, they have expertly shaped the bow of each of these tracks to cut through the icy waters of honesty they sail in.
I had concerns when I heard the modern rock guitar chime of opener and single 'Be on you way', but singer Elena Tonra dispelled them with a controlled vocal that runs contrary to the expected emotional notes. Keeping it hushed and in the groove, the band further subverts the formula with dreamy synth EMP pulses during the verse to offset the more predictable elements. When the guitar chimes in again on the choruses, it now sounds like wistful, disguised regret despite the song's optimistic message of moving on without blame.
The themes broadly break down to dealing with distance and dealing with alcohol. In the past, I've felt their writing was good but a little heavy handed; there was a tendency to romanticise fatalism. A seven-year gap has revealed a new perspective and Tonra has grown immeasurably as a songwriter. 'Party' starts with a beefy, midtempo alternative rock beat but somehow it begins to feel like the narrator is moving through a house party in a series of Polaroids, and by the end, there's an incredible deftness to the lift that slips the format bonds. Somehow it captures the exhilaration of having a good time while not being yourself, and dawning of accountability when you've reached the point that you can't remember what you're doing or saying anymore. If Sia wants to swing from the chandeliers and forget everything, then Tonra wants to avoid piecing her life together from other people's viewpoints. The almost mundane observations embedded in the song are devastating. However, the listener can take heart that it sounds like a realisation, not a capitulation.
When we move on to relationships during isolation, 'Swim back' throbs with a luminous bassline, and the other elements swirl like crystal icebergs around it. Tonra sings of a hole in the ocean, fantasizing about a shortcut around distance that she'd exploit in a heartbeat. Her vocal delivery has attracted critical displeasure in the past for being monotonous, but I think Daughter has finally hit on the structure and sound which allows it to shine. All the variations of tone and field depth going on around the central performance allow her and the bass to be the supporting column of the track. To make you feel it, she fluctuates ever so slightly in a word or phrase, and it's enough.
The album's high watermark is 'Junkmail', a track which sounds as if the National mashed up 'About today' with 'The perfect song', and it ended up working. It's the kind of song I wished they still made, and it translates longing and a certain quiet, frenzied untetheredness while being trapped. It's just a metronomic beat, a few chord shifts, then it pauses and comes back with layers of fills and strings. The voice splits into two people, our internal monologue talking to itself.
Stereo Mind Game is a delicate, mature exploration of coping under strain. My experience of the pandemic was different, but I parsed the double helix of this on my first listen. If you shuffled around your home, stood in the garden or on a balcony, and the house across from you felt like it had suddenly sailed away on a river of unfordable liquified asphalt, this may speak to you. And if you've ever encountered the inexorable pull of addiction, either as sufferer or an interventionist, you'll know there's some value in the graceful art of honesty.
