Issue 106 / Dec 2019/Jan 2020

REVIEWS
Daughters (Tomas Adam)
“The entire
experience is
anxiety-inducing and
downright unnerving,
like watching a
good horror film”
Daughters
+ Jeromes Dream
Harvest Sun @ Arts Club – 01/11
DAUGHTERS triumphantly returned after an eight-year-long
hiatus with one of the most twisted and harrowing albums of
the past decade, You Won’t Get What You Want. The album is
a surprising and rewarding continuation of their earlier work;
Daughters embrace the sounds of no wave and industrial music,
without sacrificing the hectic noise-rock edge they perfected over
their short, yet lasting, discography.
Tonight’s support, JEROMES DREAM, are something of
hardcore legends in their home state of Connecticut. The shortlived
outfit were together for a mere four years in the late 90s,
releasing two albums, both of which were one of the first to be
recorded by seminal producer Kurt Ballou, essentially the Nile
Rodgers of heavy music. They return after nearly two decades
of silence without skipping a beat. During their original stint, the
band refused to use microphones and even play on the stage,
often setting up on the floor. Rejecting convention, the music is
often angular and inharmonious, favouring screeching guitars
and violent screams. Cuts from their new untitled record like
Drone Before Parlor Violence are more melodic, and hark back to
the nostalgic emo and post-hardcore of the late 90s, yet hardly
sound dated in the slightest. Long droning sections in Half-In
A Bantam Canopy see the band embracing post-rock in a way
they previously haven’t. Everything about them serves as a big
middle finger to the mainstream. Frontman and bassist Jeff Smith
screams into a microphone with his back to the audience and
doesn’t say a single word in between songs. The message is loud
and clear, but he could at least turn around and give the kids who
are to see him a wave?
There is an air of anticipation as Daughters take to the
stage. The music dies out and a familiar tune plays over the
loudspeakers; the beautiful post-punk classic Goodbye Horses
by Q Lazzarus. The walk on reference is two-fold: firstly, as a
nod to Daughters’ embrace of the new wave sounds of the 70s
and 80s; secondly, and more notably, the song’s legacy is forever
intertwined with its iconic use in the classic film The Silence Of
The Lambs. In the spine-chilling scene, serial killer Buffalo Bill
gets all dolled up and films himself singing along to the song with
his penis tucked between his legs. All the while his latest victim
tries to escape becoming a part of his “woman suit”. Sleazy,
depraved and sex-obsessed, Daughters take to the stage.
Given the introspective nature of You Won’t Get What You
Want, one might expect the audience to be awestruck and
inward during their performance. We quickly realise this is not
the case as they begin The Reason They Hate Me. Frontman
Alexis S.F. Marshall assumes control with a bloody forehead and
brings all the energy of The Dillinger Escape Plan to Arts Club.
He stage dives, climbs on top of speakers, wraps the mic cable
around his neck. A man after GG Allin’s heart, he puts his fingers
down his throat, spews an ungodly amount of saliva onto his
hand and wipes is all over his face. The band have clearly not lost
their roots on The Lords Song, which is the closest they sound on
their latest record to their earlier days.
There is a healthy mix of old and new, squeezing in blistering
songs like The Virgin and Our Queens (One Is Many, Many Are
One) from 2010’s self-titled album, with the common thread
being the wild and shrieking guitar sounds that only Daughters
can make. Songs like the crooner Less Sex and Satan In The Wait
are where the band steps into new territory. The beautiful synth
lines in the latter sound like they could be right out of a Peter
Gabriel song, giving the audience a well needed breather before
returning to the punishing, throbbing latter half of the song as
Marshall screams “This world is opening up”.
Marshall’s lyrics transport you right into the twisted mind of
a mad man. There’s something deeply unsettling and apocalyptic
about the poetry of the closer, Ocean Song, the story of a man
overcome with paranoia at the banality of everyday life, who
simply begins to run from his home. “The shadow haunts him
for several yards/The ghosts of what he was, desperate to keep
up until gone”. Seeing the song performed live verges on an
exorcism, for Marshall and for the audience. The entire experience
is anxiety-inducing and downright unnerving, like watching a
good horror film. For those who can stomach them, Daughters
have become one of the most compelling bands in recent
memory. !
Joel Durksen / @joeldurksen
Daughters (Tomas Adam)
42