4 out of 5

Label: Hydra Head Records

Produced by: Andrew Schneider

With Daughters’ progress from a grindcore-y group into something more abstract – like a mash-up of Dillinger Escape Plan blast beats with Arab on Radar causticness – there came a struggle on how best to capture their sound.  Andrew Schneider picked up the baton on album two, Hell Songs, and did his best to capture the madness.  His experience may very well have helped steer the band toward delivering such a satisfying set: 20 minutes of precision metal and noise, impressive in its intensity, complexity, both the technical side of things and the lyrical themes.  Tracks like the opener Daughters Spelled Wrong and album centerpiece Providence By Gaslight deliver an immediate sense of urgency and despair, twisted into something almost unnervingly quirky by singer Alexis Marshall’s unleashed, spoken/shouted delivery.  With so much happening in short runtimes (there’s one six minute track, but most sit around or under two minutes), it pays to note when tracks are switching; the blast beats and fidgety guitars can swim together as one extended length mathcore jam and though this might be a delight for some, it dispels some of the mastery Daughters compact into each song, for as chaotic as things seem, there’s a clear sense of build and release and layering dialed into each of those 2 minute attacks.  This is where Schneider’s style works against the band a bit.  Tending to produce with a cleaner sound, Hell Songs is crystal clear, organic elements – like the bass – downplayed while the vocals and guitars are cleaned up.  In the more complex tracks (the aforementioned Gaslight; the shifting and amazing Hyperventilationsystem) this is a blessing, letting juxtapositions and extra flourish really shine.  But other tracks may have benefited from a Walter Weasel or Kurt Ballou “live” sound.

That’s that struggle with being at a transition point.  But the group, and Shneider, undeniably push past the complications to achieve a compromise that makes for an excellent album.