Check Out Snail Mail
Lush and beautiful melancholy. If that’s what you’re looking for then look no further than Snail Mail.
Snail Mail is an indie-rock project from twenty year old Lindsey Jordan. Her first EP, ‘Sticki’, from 2015 (while Jordan was still in High School) is about as indie as it gets. It features four low quality recordings of just Lindsey and her guitar, but even in this bare-bones setup her unique style and sound still comes through. That being said, it’s far from a good record. The song writing and performance is monotonous, the singing is far from perfect and the low-quality recording honestly makes the guitar annoying to listen to. But she was sixteen, this was her first EP and she was still figuring out not just her style but how to produce music in general.
In 2016 Snail Mail released her second EP ‘Habit’. From the first song the improvement over the course of just one year is stark. There are some obvious improvements from a technical stand-point, like the recording quality and the number of instruments, but for the most part these are quick fixes that come from practice. What’s striking is how quickly her song writing and style evolved. Where ‘Sticki’ definitely has her signature mellow yet emotive vocals and her drowning yet bright guitar, ‘Habit’ takes all of that but adds more depth and variety to it. She’s able to, with the help of a full band now, create some higher energy tracks, catchier and more interesting lyrics and deliver her signature vocals with more control, power and variety than on the previous EP. Still it felt like Jordan had a lot more place to grow into her style and improve.
Indie rock at the moment has a tendency to be… uninteresting to say the least. It doesn’t sound bad, it just… sounds like one dimensional pop-rock that couldn’t be considered pop-rock because rock has no pop presence anymore. This isn’t the case for Snail Mail and it never has been. Jordan has said in interviews that she takes huge influence from My Bloody Valentine, specifically from guitarist/vocalist Bilinda Butcher. This makes perfect sense. Snail Mail oozes shoegaze and dream pop energy. But that’s also clearly not the only place of influence. If you are at all a fan of indie and alt rock then the influence of artists like Pavement, Sonic Youth even The Velvet Underground or Lou Reed is pretty clear. This is a major part of what I love about Jordan’s music that I sometimes feel is lacking in a lot of indie rock — she is so clearly in dialogue with her indie rock predecessors. There is a real sense of continuity between her music and the last 60 or so years of indie-rock. That’s not to say she doesn’t have her own unique sound because she certainly does. What distinguishes Jordan from many of her contemporaries, however, is that she doesn’t just sound like an artist from the 21st century existing in a vacuum. When I hear her music I hear a rich depth in performance, style and song writing that only comes from belonging to a lineage of artists.
Two years on from ‘Habit’ a lot had changed. Snail Mail had toured North America, been signed to Matador Records, performed on Audiotree Live and released multiple singles. Then, in 2018, she released her debut studio album ‘Lush’. ‘Lush’ is through and through a great album. Once more we hear Jordan elevating her style and finally, in my opinion, really nailing it for the first time on this album. The cleaner production quality really allows the beautiful guitar tones, stellar vocal performances and compelling lyrics to shine. With that being said the production never sounds ‘too clean’ or sterile, it still feels like an indie record. Just with more experience and expertise. Every aspect of the album is a cut above anything Jordan had previously released. Better lyrics, more confident vocal performances, more willingness to push the limits of her voice, more diverse track listing, and the list goes on. But still when I listen to it, I feel like there is more Jordan is capable of.
Snail Mail is not my favourite indie-rock act right now and she’s not the most essential artist in the scene either. But I think in a couple more years she will be. The vast improvement between her first EP in 2015 and her first studio album in 2018 suggests to me that she still has a lot of fantastic tracks to make. At age 20 she has a unique and unmistakeably modern sound while still participating in the beautiful and rich tradition of indie-rock.
If you have any interest in the indie-rock scene I recommend keeping your eye on her, I know I will be. Lindsey Jordan, I think, is both the past and future of indie-rock, I’m just excited to see when she becomes the present.
