DAUGHTER - If You Leave LP (180gram vinyl)

Label: Glassnote

London singer-guitarist Elena Tonra, or Daughter, likes her single word song titles. There are 10 of them on her debut album, If You Leave, and the economy she brings to labeling is a reflection of the concentrated themes that ripple through this record. Potent images of life and death entwine with the ever-present subject of lost love. The album is a catalogue of heartbreak; a song cycle of such damaged fallout that it begs the question of who these heartless bastards just might be.

The production’s airy space allows Tonra’s brittle tone to be heard in soft echoes and die-away whispers. There’s an anger to her writing that acts as a counter to its more blatantly depressive tendencies. So what should be, and clearly is, a cathartic experience is also a pleasurable listen as you hear the ghosts of her past being banished. She’s locked in a dark room lyrically, but that claustrophobia’s eased through an experimental dimension that defies the usual labels instrumentally. These cavernous guitar effects, corrosive beats, and inspiring melodic twists magnify If You Leave, an album with true grandeur and occasion. Bastards be damned.