Daughters (album)

Background

Recording for Daughters began in April 2009, and the tracking process was finished by June 2009. However, in August 2009, Daughters had abruptly broken up. The situation was described by Alexis Marshall as a "big falling out" stemming from creative and personal differences among band members. Marshall commented on his feelings leading up to the temporary breakup in an interview with Decibel, stating, "I got fed up with people and it became too much. For a long time I was just a drunk doing stupid shit, and this band was all I had. Then I changed my life and realized how unhappy I was. It was easy to walk away and stop killing myself for this." The disbandment was never officially announced, and "no one outside of [Daughters] knew" about the breakup. Before the end of 2009, Alexis Marshall and Jon Syverson reformed Daughters as a two-piece band to release their self-titled album Daughters, which had already been completed by this time.

During the time of release, Daughters was thought to be the band's final album. Though the two remaining members of Daughters (Alexis Marshall and drummer Jon Syverson) have no immediate intentions of touring in support of the album or replacing former members.

Daughters is considered by critics to be the band's most accessible album to date. Previous albums, 2003's Canada Songs and 2006's Hell Songs, featured a comparatively more intense grindcore sound. Vocalist Alexis Marshall also sings instead of screams on the album similar to the band's previous album Hell Songs. Guitarist Nick Sadler experimented with more commercially accessible guitar parts when writing the album. Sadler had grown tired of performing the "dizzying [and] high-pitched" songs from Hell Songs live, and wanted to add "more groove and low-end" to the band's sound. He wrote bigger-sounding songs that wouldn't "get lost in a large room", contrasting previous Daughters albums. Marshall was not pleased with the band's new sound on Daughters, citing that it was forced, not natural, and thus less artistic. In an interview with Noisecreep, Marshall commented, "It's so easy to steer it and try to be accepted, and do this because this is what's good, and this is what's going to make our band popular. That's no good. That's not art. That's shit. It's not even shit. It's less than shit. What's less than shit? I don't even know. Trying to be other bands... that's less than shit."

Reception

Daughters was met with widespread critical acclaim, with many reviewers commenting on the album's cohesiveness and accessibility in comparison to their earlier work.

Writing for Pitchfork, David Raposa wrote, "...hardcore Daughters lovers will probably have plenty of bones to pick with this album. For everyone else, Daughters is a feast to be savored." Similarly Andrew Magnotta of The Aquarian Weekly said, "Daughters is a straight-ahead, tooth-grinding sprint to no place in particular. You get the sense that the band doesn’t care where they wind up as long as everything along the way is completely devastated."

Track listing

All songs written and recorded by Daughters.

1. "The Virgin" – 2:03
2. "The First Supper" – 3:19
3. "The Hit" – 3:44
4. "The Theatre Goer" – 3:40
5. "Our Queens (One Is Many, Many Are One)" – 3:11
6. "The Dead Singer" – 4:28
7. "Sweet Georgia Brown" – 3:14
8. "The Unattractive, Portable Head" – 4:16

Personnel

Daughters personnel according to CD liner notes.