Album Review: Daughter - If You Leave

“I'm sorry if I smothered you/I sometimes wish I'd stayed inside my mother/Never to come out”, bemoans Elena Tonra on Smother, taken from Daughter's debut and ever-so-deep-and-meaningful album, If You Leave. It's all so earnest and maudlin that it could suck the happiness out of you faster than a dementor could. This is not an album you want to listen to if you're in, and want to remain in, a happy mood.

Opening track, Winter, is one of the less depressing tracks included on the album, yet it is still not one that will suit a listener with a sunny disposition. From the get go, it appears that Tonra has used the lyrics to these tracks as a vehicle for catharsis, and while her honesty is to be commended, an entire album's worth of misery wears a little thin if you're not in the right mood to deal with it. If you are, however, then you will want to let If You Leave's comforting arms envelope you.

Youth is of particular note, as it provides an unexpected jolt of life in the form of some nice drumming, with the only other lively track being in the form of Human. These two tracks inject some much-needed verve into what would otherwise be one long dirge.

If you can get past Tonra's often pained vocals and often overwrought lyrics, the music that she and her bandmates, Igor Haefeli and Remi Aguilella, have created is actually atmospheric and calming, not to mention pretty. Reverberation has been used in spades, giving what would otherwise be quite a minimalistic experience an ethereal quality.

For all of its depressive qualities, this is a good album – it's just not a happy one.