Review: Kiki Rockwell's "Eldest Daughter of an Eldest Daughter"

Kiki Rockwell makes the music I'd want to make if I had a naturally musical bone in my body. I discovered her shortly before the release of her first album, Rituals on the Bank of a Familiar River, and I was instantly smitten. Her songwriting is a blend of folk music, techno, and ritual chanting that often borders on spoken word poetry, with her lyrics similarly mixing folktales, spells, and fables with feminist rhetoric that gives way to seething rage. The result is something that holds tangible power when played; Rockwell layers track over track when mixing, stacking multiple vocal tracks over each other and occasionally calling in friends and family to chant in choruses over pounding bass drums and violin.

Her music videos are essentially short films; Kiki and the team she works with have a knack for creating stunning narratives in short time spans, and the love she has for fantasy media, movies, and folktales shines in the stories she creates. This album features two music videos, "Syrena" (Track 9) and "Strange Premonition" (Track 2). "Syrena" made me cry, because I'm a sucker for tragic love stories (and especially stories about selkies), but "Strange Premonition" brought me an intense amount of joy. I don't think there's any way to convey how fun this video is without watching it, so I'm going to leave it here for you to enjoy. Watch at your leisure, but I very much encourage you to watch it.

I'm convinced that, had this song and music video come out during the height of Stranger Things popularity, it would rocket Rockwell to immediate mainstream stardom. However, the fact that she released a campy 1980's slasher-themed video years after the hype died highlights the most important thing about Kiki Rockwell's music: she's genuinely having fun, and it shows. Kiki Rockwell is creating music for herself, and if she connects with other weird women who love medieval beasts and want to dance in the woods, all the better.

Eldest Daughter of an Eldest Daughter feels like a culmination of the work Rockwell has been creating since her 2021 EP Bleeding Out in a Forest, but polished and refined. It's a very natural progression, and as always, every song is a joy to listen to. The techno influences on this album that we heard on previous songs like "Madeline" "Cup Runneth Over" and "Harbinger" are dialed up to 11 on Eldest Daughter, but in contrast to previous releases, almost every song on this album is a blend of both electronic and acoustic, instead of favoring on or the other too heavily. "Seven Angels Greet Me in the Carpark" is the most heavily electronic song on the album, but "Strange Premonition" and "Agent 44" also lean heavily in that direction. I don't dislike the more electronic songs (and I absolutely adore "Strange Premonition"), but my favorites on this album ended up being the slow-building tracks with a more ethereal atmosphere.

"Faery King" (Track 3) is a stripped-down song that builds into a frenzy, with delicate violin over a techno bass drum and Rockwell's signature haunting vocals. The lyrics reference old Fae folktales, but also speak to Dianic witchcraft and goddess worship, a common theme in Rockwell's work. It's among my favorites, along with "Malleus Maleficarum,"(Track 4) "Lilith,"(Track 6) "Holy Rage,"(Track 8) and "Dragonrider" (Track 10). "Syrena" (Track 9) is also an absolute standout, a mournful sea shanty that builds into a wave and crashes to shore. Rockwell's vocals soar, crack, and waver over every track in a way that feels refined but wholly organic, something practiced without being calculated. Her passion is palpable in every single note, leading to an album that feels like a beautifully crafted labor of love, the vocal equivalent of illuminated manuscript.

Throughout this album even more than others, Rockwell plays on the idea of sex and sexuality as something ancient and sacred, almost ritualistic. It bears similarity to the ideas present in 2010's feminist sexual liberation, but it leans in a direction that, for better or for worse, presents sex as a weapon to be mastered. Rockwell is not liberated because she is a sexual object, she is a woman attempting to break free from self-objectification by using it to her advantage. It';s the femme fatale trope redone for the modern era, a woman who has read Laura Mulvey but still can't get the omnipresent watcher in her head to quiet down.

This philosophy is present in "Strange Premonition" and "Agent 44," but (seemingly) intentionally absent from "Lilith," which subverts the common mythology that Lilith's only merit (or only sin) was seduction and casting her in a more three-dimensional light. Sexuality is only present in songs where Rockwell has agency, using it as a temptation that leads to the ruin of (mostly) men and as a power wielded over her lovers. However, in her love songs like "Syrena" and last album's "Cup Runneth Over" or "From Persephone," her lyrics are devoid of anything that would objectify her love interest. This makes the mentions of sex in her songs feel all the more ritualistic, haunting, and arcane; free from the connotations of sensuality and softness, Rockwell wields sex and attraction as something jagged and heavy, something with teeth.

I unfortunately was not a fan of her cover of "Satisfaction" (Track 7, originally by Benny and the Biz), but not for any reasons she could help. I just cannot stand that song, and typically, the source material has to be good in order to create a good cover. There are some songs not even a forest wench can save. 

I like to imagine that Kiki Rockwell and I would be fast friends, if I ever had a chance to meet her. I, too, love moss and creatures and Ren faires! I also insist upon spelling "faerie" with an -ie, regardless of the American English spelling! I, too, am the eldest daughter of an only daughter, and understand all the implications of that hallowed title. We could form a coven, make our own clothes, and spend our days in feral bliss hunting for cool rocks and toads. 

Parasocial ramblings aside, I truly do appreciate that Rockwell is willing to put so much of herself into her art; the hardest part of creating anything is putting it out into the world, but she continues to weave her own experiences into the tapestry of favorite movies, books, folklore and fables that make up her albums. I, for one, can't wait to see what she does next.