- Transitioning from well received debut EP on a small D.I.Y punk label to a debut full-length on a major independent label has been taken in the confident stride of Snail Mail’s sole creative force, Lindsay Jordan. On her new record Lush, Jordan continues her raw venting ways over moody, jangling indie rock being strained through folk and slowcore influences. As you’d expect from a debut album, the rough edges have been filed back into an easier to digest shape and benefit from a cleaner, grander production. Bringing her lyrical narrative and dynamic vocals to the forefront over meandering songs, it places slightly too much pressure on said ability to animate these stories and engage the audience. It’s definitely a strong point on Lush but borrowing heartily from deep seated life trials, the constant emphasis on the tumultuous relationships and pain of growing can only stretch so far and appeal for so long. Save some powerful vocal performances and occasionally moving guitar work, the latter half of this debut comes across as bloated and there are things on here that wouldn’t be awfully missed.
Jordan’s youth doesn't detract from the power of her impact. More often that not, the vocal punches are landed with an overwhelming thud squarely in your vulnerable emotions. It revolves around her: these songs don’t question or lambast the other or their motives; and airing the dirty laundry of all her relationships really works when enclosed in such highly relatable content. There’s no holding back here. Her candid, cathartic song topics will resonate with even the most closed off of us.
With defining vocal performances on lead sing Pristine and Speaking Terms that get the central message of this album across, Snail Mail’s debut looked primed to be a perfect first step. For another two songs, this remains intact but the breaks are slammed on with Let’s Find An Out. Sadly, it doesn’t recover from there. Whatever illusion holding this record together quickly vanishes. The remainder wanes significantly.
There’s no doubt Snail Mail’s mix of consistently clean chords strummed with a sleepy head nod can work to its advantage. Previously mentioned songs exemplify this and when it’s paired with low rumbles of organs on Stick that builds up to a thrilling climax before disappearing into nothing. However, Lush lacks enough variation to recycle this same pattern and not grow stale. As mentioned before, once the middle of the album hit and ruins the flow, the songs sound like reworked efforts of what we’ve previously heard. Turn the volume to ear splitting levels smother it with enough distortion to make Electric Wizard grin and drown the vocals in enough reverb to sound like they’re coming from a hollowed out Death Star, you’ve a shoegaze record (blergh). Remove any power source from this recording and trade the electric guitar for an acoustic and this could easily be a folk record. Give this band four of five additional members and this could be a slowcore album. There are only so many songs about heartbreak and growing up that can be delivered over guitar chords that sound half asleep and a rhythm section that sounds fully asleep at the wheel. The ground work for a really good album is here, it just hasn’t been executed well. To me, it feels like Snail Mail has taken this one-person band too much to heart, she hasn't embraced all the elements that are here to be worked with.
If you removed every song on the back end of the record save Full Control, Lush would have been a triumphant burst from the gates from a young, talented singer-songwriter. Short albums are seemingly becoming the trend and if this one fell in with that crowd, it wouldn’t have been a bad thing. Some more boundaries being pushed or the inclusion of more hooks wouldn’t have gone astray either. It has all the core elements to be a memorable album. While I do really like the singles to come from this album and they’ve probably remain some of my favourite indie punk gems for the year, there’s just too much dead weight here.
- Matt Lynch.