If you don’t have a tub of ice cream handy, a very large drink might be equally effective at lifting your mood. “Stick,” a song depicting that depressed-anxious mixture that arises at your most lonely and frustrated, echoes that mental self-flagellation so achingly that the song almost compels you to hold your breath and tense your shoulders while listening.
For instance, after the high of “Pristine,” we move through a sadder, slightly slower “Speaking Terms” and then into “Heat Wave,” which gradually rises within its five minutes to a heavy finale employing a potent mixture of Jordan’s vocals, guitar and drum work to convey the singer’s exhaustion with “sometime” hookups in place of an old relationship. The album’s tracks are arranged successfully so that, even though each song is delivered at the relative same tempo and emotional pitch, the songs volley between softer, slightly more introspective songs and songs with a heartrending emotional crescendo. It’s a thornier situation and song than what is typically offered in less-nuanced songs about unrequited love or heartache, and indicative of the specificity Jordan brings to each track, despite each generally being about similar emotions. The song has Jordan claiming confidently to someone that she knows herself and will “never love anyone else,” even though the person she sings to is guilty of changing their personality and feelings to fit who they think they should be. “Pristine” follows, and with its opening notes carrying a whiff of the Foo Fighters’ “Everlong,” transports you to a grungier kind of melancholy that is particularly fitting for Jordan’s vocal and musical styling. That continues here, with the album immediately bringing you into Jordan’s intimate world with “Intro,” a short song that lets Jordan’s sorrow-tinged voice shine through. The mood established by the Snail Mail discography is one of barebones heartache, with the image of the singer as someone sitting in her bedroom and pouring out her heart into a ‘90s-era tape recorder. Jordan has stated the goal of the album as getting listeners to cry “into a tub of ice cream” by the end, and it’s a completely feasible goal the just-the-right-length album features songs that have to do with any and all phases of ending a relationship or loving someone who doesn’t or can’t reciprocate your feelings, and they’re sung with such naked vulnerability that you have to feel something about it all. You get the sense throughout the album that these songs flowed seamlessly out of Jordan the moment she picked up a guitar. Despite her young age and one official EP under her belt, Jordan’s songs here don’t feel like they only exist to prove something, or just to get a full-length out there.
Lindsey Jordan’s first studio album as Snail Mail, Lush, solidifies her place in the indie-rock landscape, with songs that are confident in their perspective and delivery.
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