Daughters Canada Songs

For the last year, fans of aggressive, tech-influenced noise have been drooling in anticipation of the debut "full-length" from Daughters, the band comprised of former members of As The Sun Sets. While Daughters definitely inherited their talent and originality, they also, unfortunately, inherited their tendency to disappoint. At just over eleven minutes, this so-called album could have fit on a seven inch. Unlike the meandering noise that made up large parts of the last few ATSS releases, however, each of the album's ten tracks demonstrates the musical intensity and ingenuity of the band in a period of under two minutes. While there isn't an amazing variety from track to track, I really don't think that will matter to most fans of this type of music anyway. Most of the songs are comprised of two or three parts that alternate between a break-neck blastbeat and a slower cymbal-driven "smash" (for lack of a better description). The most obvious comparison (besides ATSS) is early Locust, but Daughters give greater emphasis to the grind aspect to make their songs and style stand out when contrasted with similar groups. In addition to the accomplished drumming, the simple yet effective guitar riffs kept me listening to this album, often three or four times in a row. My major problem with this disc (besides it's length) is the sort of pretention and pomposity with which it is presented. The Daughters' press release reads like the work of a grad student trying to impress his peers with big words and obscure philosophical references. This might not affect some peoples' take on the band, but it made me wonder if perhaps they thought that their music was so brilliant that ten minutes was as good as (if not better than) most entire albums. The whole thing could be a big joke, but this sort of artsy noise-core seems to go hand in hand with big egos and widespread critical fawning. Who knows anymore. Bottom Line: "Canada Songs" is an excellent ten minutes of spastic grind and discordant chaos. The band manages to express musically in a short timespan what many bands of this genre don't in their entire career. While I'm absolutely certain that the record doesn't reach the lofty artistic peaks that the band themselves believe it does, it is an accomplished work nonetheless and should be a welcome addition to the collection of anyone who enjoys this sort of music. Just make sure you put it on repeat.