Not what we want, but what we need - Daughters at Bottom of the Hill

8 years after their supposed swan song, Self Titled (2010), Daughters released their highly anticipated follow up You Won’t Get What You Want on October 26, 2018. On their 2010 album Daughters, the Rhode Island-based group changed their sound from a scream-heavy grindcore to a more melody-driven noise-rock. The new album feels like a continuation of this evolution, and is more mature, versatile, and atmospheric. It is also much darker than its predecessor.

At Bottom of the Hill, opener Lingua Ignota (Latin for “unknown language”) gave a memorably bizarre performance of devilish screams and dramatic smashing of lights on the floor. Seattle-based band Dream Decay followed Lingua Ignota with the energetic post-punk dissonance and frantic vocals of frontman and drummer Justin Gallegos.

Daughters began their performance with the song “Satan in the Wait”, a grinding seven minute song filled with bright guitar melodies, which are soon enveloped by droning guitars at the conclusion of the song. The chanting of “this world is opening up” becomes less of an optimistic hope and more of a desperate cry for help as the world swallows the narrator whole.

The tracks off of You Won’t Get What You Want create a sonic landscape unlike anything I’ve experienced before. The guitars on this album have been used to create ungodly brutish noises that feel as though I’m being stabbed repeatedly in the ears. Shrill guitar shrieks and pummeling riffs create a nightmarish performance which is both ambitious and fantastic. As unpleasant as it may sound, this dissonance and brutality are the perfect accompaniment to the lyrical content of the album. Frontman Alexis S.F. Marshall sings of Satan, lurking evils, the fear of madness, depression, and suicide, creating an album as terrifying as anything I’ve ever heard. Daughters has managed to make a horror film of an album, and an excellent one at that — using people’s fears of monotony, mediocrity, anxiety, and panic rather than a physical entity.

A captivating onstage presence, Marshall moved erratically, grabbing the heads of people in the crowd and swallowing the microphone. In an appropriate conclusion, the band played “Ocean Song” followed by “Guest House,” the ending tracks of their new album. The former track is a surrealist story of a man named Paul, who returns to his house one day and experiences an overwhelming panic and urge to run and flee his life and himself. The song ends with a haunting repetition of Paul’s reason to keep running, “to see if there is an ocean beyond the waves.” “Guest House” describes a character returning to an abandoned and boarded-up house, knocking and trying to get back in. As the guitars came to an orchestral, deafening crescendo, Marshall repeatedly cried “Let me in!”, the agony and desperation in his voice palpable. Leaving the venue, his screams echoed in my ears.

Daughters have created an album that resonates with our deepest fears — loss of control, insanity inducing monotony, and becoming the very monster we are terrified of. The result is something that is dark, surreal, frightening, brimming with energy, and thoroughly fantastic.