The declarative tone of the lyrics “We can be anything/Even apart/Out of everything/It doesn’t have to be this hard/I could be anyone,” from “Pristine,” offers a heart-wrenching plea and, by laying emphasis on the “everything” and “anyone” and “anything,” Jordan projects the personal into something more than just a degrading relationship. Writing the album, Jordan says, “felt like I was just making detailed accounts of everything that was happening in my life, even though obviously that’s not how it comes across because the songs are kind of vague.” They always seem to delicately balance the personal and the generalized. The grunge-like warmth carries over into “Heat Wave” (unsurprisingly), for which Jordan describes the songwriting process as “like puking onto paper and crying.” It sounds melodramatic, but she adeptly avoids overindulgence, resulting in an exceptionally shareable song, which people might not ever guess was spawned from such emotionally raw material. It feels angsty, hopeful, and melancholic all at once, as the song often crescendos but never quite reaches a point of resolution. It’s a fleshed out, jingling and jangling sound that moves at a slow jogging pace, leading some to label it slowcore. The repetition of a single chord and the consistency of an open string balance out the rest of the guitar, which jumps and twitches around, creating a subtly layered track. The track “Pristine” conjures the kind of warmth of a long summer holiday that makes you uncomfortable and restless-a kind of sunshine grunge.
When you listen to the record, the reasons for the frenzy become clear. With the release of her début album Lush earlier this year, the band has begun to gain mass media attention. “So I formed a band just for the one show and then after that, we got asked to do seven dates with the label that we put Habit out on,” she recalls, referring to the 2016 EP that was her first success. She had only a few songs on Bandcamp and no fellow musicians to speak of when her friend got her onto the lineup for a festival in her native Baltimore. Lindsey Jordan is the nineteen-year-old genius behind this enigmatic band, which began almost by accident midway through her time in high school. Just as their name refers to the once-ubiquitous and societally crucial postal system, their music is a reversion to past iterations of indie rock, perhaps suggesting that the best is already here and is just waiting to be made new again. We’ve heard almost every mutation of the genre and Snail Mail isn’t exactly doing anything different but is doing so with impeccable adeptness. This distant, indefinable familiarity is a testament to the songwriter in a scene like indie rock, already very worn-through and arguably past its peak popularity. But it’s unique enough that it’s distinctly Snail Mail.” “It’s taken me years to put into words how special songwriting is, and I still haven’t been able to do it,” he told the Washington Post, adding that the songs emanate the sense of “something that you’ve heard before. It’s a game by which Ray Brown, Snail Mail’s drummer, has been equally as mystified. Or perhaps you’ll hear early Unknown Mortal Orchestra in the wriggling solos or maybe Kurt Vile, but less lackadaisical. There’s hints of Courtney Barnett’s candid lyricism, not as quotidian nor as humorous, but almost as truthful and raw.
#Snail mail free
When you listen to Snail Mail for the first time, your mind will begin to free associate. When asked about that song’s blasé lines like, “Got money, I don’t care about sex,” Jordan explains with a chuckle that they are purely aspirational: “I really wish I could be that character, but I’m not.SNAIL MAIL RENEWS THE GENRE OF INDIE ROCK
Side A also includes “Forever (Sailing),” a hallucinogenic ballad that could slip into a bizarro yacht-rock compilation and “Ben Franklin,” a surprisingly synth-forward track about trying to feign apathy in the face of breakup. The first half of Valentine, Jordan explains, is “almost fun,” led by the title track, a soaring guitar anthem in the lineage of her faves Paramore. Produced by Jordan and indie vet Brad Cook, the new record pushes beyond the wistful rock of her 2018 debut, Lush. The singer, songwriter, and guitarist’s upcoming second album, Valentine, continues this theme across 10 songs that find her trapped in romances that are frequently all-consuming and rarely healthy. Over the last few years, Jordan-who performs under the name Snail Mail-has become one of indie rock’s most heart-wrenching artists by digging into the beautiful and ugly parts of being young, sensitive, and lovesick.
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