If You Leave

Given its beginnings as Elena Tonra's solo project, it would be easy to assume that Daughter is just another singer/songwriter act with a couple of supporting musicians. However, over the course of If You Leave, Tonra, guitarist Igor Haefeli, and drummer Remi Aguilella make it clear that this is the work of a band. Together, they swing between moments of close-up intimacy and widescreen majesty, often during the course of one song. These songs have so many ebbs and flows that they're practically tidal: "Lifeforms" swells from spiraling guitars that recall the xx in their moody simplicity into towering rock that makes the most of Haefeli's amps and Aguilella's kit. That said, the most powerful part of Daughter's music is Tonra's lyrics, which are full of striking images that echo and intensify the music's mix of detail and drama. Heartbreak leaves physical destruction in its wake on "Youth," where the loveless are "setting fire to our insides for fun"; "Still" uses careful and clever pa