SNAIL MAIL

LUISTERTRIP APRIL
Snail Mail, het project van de Amerikaanse muzikante Lindsey Jordan, maakte met Lush uit 2018 en vooral met Valentine uit 2021 twee albums die niet onderdeden voor de beste indiepop en singer-songwriter albums van dat moment. Op Valentine maakte Lindsey Jordan indruk met zeer persoonlijke songs, die waren getekend door de loodzware periode die volgde op het onverwachte succes van Lush. De jonge Amerikaanse muzikante slaagde er met haar fraaie gitaarspel en haar karakteristieke en soms wat onvaste stem in om anders te klinken dan de vele andere jonge vrouwelijke singer-songwriters van dat moment en keert na bijna vijf jaar terug met haar derde album. Na twee ‘coming of age’ albums worstelt Lindsey Jordan nu met het volwassen zijn in een complexe wereld, wat ook dit keer persoonlijke songs oplevert. In de vijf jaar tussen Valentine en Ricochet heeft de Amerikaanse muzikante flinke stappen gezet. Met name de zang op het nieuwe album klinkt veel mooier en zelfverzekerder, maar ook in muzikaal opzicht is Ricochet een veelzijdiger en mooier klinkend album. Het is een album waarmee Snail Mail zich ontworstelt aan de vergelijking met anderen en op de proppen komt met een meer eigen geluid, dat niet misstaat tussen het beste dat jonge vrouwelijke singer-songwriters momenteel te bieden hebben. (Erwin Zijleman)



On Ricochet, her third album as Snail Mail, Lindsey Jordan returns to assert herself as a generational songwriter, clear-eyed and honest as ever. Time has passed, but she remains a sensitive soul, and here her incisive introspection is tethered to newly expansive and hypnotic melodies and ornate string arrangements. While writing Ricochet, Jordan found herself fixating on concerns she’d previously pushed out of her mind, namely death and what happens after. These 11 songs are colored by the anxiety of watching life slip through your fingers, as well as the vulnerability of loving deeply rather than frenetically. Ultimately, Ricochet is an album about realizing—and accepting—that the world still turns no matter what is going on in your tiny life.

Ricochet is the first Snail Mail album in five years, and a lot has happened in the interim. Before touring 2021’s Valentine around the world, Jordan had surgery for vocal polyps. She underwent intensive speech therapy and emerged as a more confident vocalist—on Ricochet, Jordan wields newfound control over her voice, ironically enough for an album about uncertainty. She made her acting debut in Jane Schoenbrun’s indie horror I Saw the TV Glow, playing a Buffy-esque heroine with psychic powers. She moved out of New York, floated around for a bit, and landed in the area around Greensboro, North Carolina. She’s 26 and has a fluffy white puffball of a dog, whom she holds up to the night sky so she can see the stars.

All the while, Jordan was working on new music. She tried to write quickly—“which obviously didn’t work”—but with intention, aiming not to leave any material on the cutting room floor. “I've never done this before, but I wrote all of the instrumentals and vocal melodies on the piano or guitar, and then I filled in the lyrics all at once over a year,” Jordan says. “It takes me a lot more time and consideration to make great melodies than it does trying to connect things lyrically, so I gave myself more time to do the one.”

When it came time to record the songs bouncing around in her head, Jordan turned to a friend, Aron Kobayashi Ritch, the bassist and producer of the fuzzy indie rock band Momma. In winter 2025, they made Ricochet at North Carolina’s Fidelitorium Recordings, owned by R.E.M. producer Mitch Easter, and the Nightfly and Studio G in Brooklyn. Jordan describes the process as refreshing, trusting, and comfortable. “I felt like an equal voice,” she says. “He was as interested in my decisions as I was in his.”

Sonically, Ricochet sounds like the natural next step in Snail Mail’s small but mighty discography, building on the poised guitar parts of her 2018 Matador debut, Lush, and Valentine’s raw rock passion. Ricochet channels the Smashing Pumpkins at their sunniest and Radiohead at their most Britpop, with notes of Catherine Wheel shoegaze, Ivy power pop, and Sunny Day Real Estate emo. These are welcoming and vibrant tones of swooning ’90s alt-rock, embellished with unusual chords and curious textures that tickle the ear. (The most immediate and obvious descriptor is, ahem, lush.)