During their mid-2000s heyday, Providence foursome Daughters fed off their own recklessness to the point that it became an inextricable part of their identity. Excellent example: I caught them on tour in (maybe) 2007 in Covington, Kentucky, with Louisville hardcore-punk maniacs Lords during which an absolutely plowed member of one band stumbled onstage to take a piss while an absolutely plowed member of the other band cupped his hands to catch that piss. The latter absolutely plowed member then chucked said piss in the air and let it rain down onstage (and the small crowd) like he had just discovered a treasure chest of gold coins. It was very gnarly—but not shocking. After all, Daughters began by making a fuck-all, blastbeat-ridden, offensive screed of noise topped by the shrieking of front man Alexis Marshall. Far from charming, their ten-track debut full-length, Canada Songs (2003), clocks in at 11 violent minutes long. And when Marshall traded his screaming for sleazing and the band shape-shifted from grind to lashing noise-rock with 2006’s Hell Songs, the tension created via the frenetic but tight drumming of Jon Syverson and the flailing, hyper riffs of guitarist Nicholas Andrew Sadler became even more chilling and calculated. Daughters split in 2009 because the members openly hated one another, but they somehow managed to release a self-titled album postmortem the next year. No tour followed, however—a shame given how enormous that record sounds. But Daughters refused to play dead, practically as a “fuck you” to their own self-inflicted mortality. And with the release of their new You Won’t Get What You Want (Ipecac) last month, we should celebrate that defiant philosophy. This is Daughters’ best record to date; it’s more tempered and sophisticated than their previous efforts, but only so that there’s more room to be bleak and sinister, two qualities that sound better with age. Sadler’s whirling guitar work remains intact while darker harmonies melt down the backbones of tracks. “Satan in the Wait” is downright operatic by Daughters standards, with Marshall soliloquizing like a madman with purpose, while the next two tracks, “The Flammable Man” and “The Lords Song,” recall the volatility of their other records, each mutating into a barreling mass by the end. For those followers of Daughters who lost track of the band during their hiatus—you won’t realize how much you wanted a new record until you hear this. Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait another eight years for a follow-up. v
After eight years away, a wiser—but still volatile—Daughters return with their best record yet
