10. You Won't Get What You Want - Daughters
There’s an unsettling electronic buzzing noise, then a drum is bashed with such monotonous aggression that it sounds like gunfire. A dazed and wounded voice appears, a man keeps repeating something about a ‘city is an empty glass.' Behind him there are painful moans and yelps and then, after a deceptively quiet moment, the nightmare unfolds. Amid the cacophony, a man is shrieking in fear and pain, it also sounds as if someone is running amok with a chainsaw and there are further gunlike drum noises. Then silence.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that this was the description of a. scene from a gruesome horror movie. In fact, it's the opening five minutes of You Won't Get What You Want' - the first Daughters album is eight years.
'City Song’ is a beautifully bleak place to start for the bands long overdue return to the studio, it’s as disturbing as anything on Sunn O))) and Scott Walker’s ‘Soused’ project. Which is meant entirely as a compliment.
Back in 2003, Daughters debut album (‘Canada Songs'), lasted a mere 11 minutes and had such touching titles as ‘I Don’t Give a Shit About Wood, I’m not a Chemist’ , ‘Pants, Meet Shit’ and ‘I Slept With the Daughters and All I Got Was This Lousy Song Written About Me’. It was greeted as a grindcore and art core (no, me neither). classic. It may come as no surprise that the lyrics were completely indecipherable.
By the time of their third release 'S/T' ( a bloated 28 minutes) in 2010, there were some identifiable melodies amongst the screeching chaos. However, none of this prepares the listener for the broad scope of their recorded return. Whilst the disorienting swirl of 'Long Road, No Turns' ups the ante on the agony that 'City Song' created, it's the single 'Satan in the Wait' that is one of the album's great surprises. The opening shakes through you like wailing sirens, the central character is given an unflattering description ("Some faces not even a mother can love."), before they descend into violent extremism. But alongside this horror show is something more conventional, thanks to a chorus (probably), and a melodic bell like sound that punctures the song.
The most tuneful moment on the album though is the angry sneering 'The Reason They Hate Me', which also includes one of the albums most amusing lyrics ("they got a name for people like you/But I didn’t take the time to write it down,” ). In amongst the darkness Daughters can be be extremely funny.
The most visceral moment is saved for the extraordinary closer 'Guest House'. You may never get the anguished pleading of 'Alexis Marshall' repeated screaming 'Let Me In' for a long time.
Not only have Daughters defied all expectations by reforming, they have created an album that is startlingly broad in the process. They may assert that You Won't Get What You Want, but I would seriously beg to differ.
