![]() ![]() The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.Copyright 2019 Fresh Air. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. (SOUNDBITE OF JERRY GRANELLI'S "THE GREAT PRETENDER")Ĭopyright © 2018 NPR. He reviewed Snail Mail's new album, "Lush." After we take a short break, film critic Justin Chang will review the sequel to the animated film "The Incredibles." This is FRESH AIR. GROSS: Ken Tucker is critic at large for Yahoo TV. For someone so new to this album game, Jordan is impressively, almost unnervingly, good at it. Most of the songs hover around the five-minute mark, yet they rarely seem too long. The music is too hard-nosed for that adjective. This debut album, "Lush," isn't lush exactly. Snail Mail has been an opening act for the latter. TUCKER: Lindsey Jordan emerged from a suburb of Baltimore where she started applying her classical guitar education to influences such as Liz Phair and Waxahatchee's Katie Crutchfield. SNAIL MAIL: (Singing) And I carved your name in the white dulling day. Three short lines in the song "Anytime" - carved your name in the white dulling day - well, that is lyric verse that any print poet would be pleased to have written. But what strikes me is how elusive and elliptical they often are, how frequently they resist easy interpretation without a trace of pretension. TUCKER: Looking through some of the early reviews of Snail Mail, some have zeroed in on the heartbreak in Lindsey Jordan's lyrics. Oh, strawberry moon, you're always coming back a little older, but it looks all right on you. SNAIL MAIL: (Singing) June's glowing red. She also does the useful thing of making her rock guitar do the work of a folksinger's acoustic one on a song such as "Let's Find An Out." Working with a band that's just a bass-drums-rhythm section, Jordan makes her lead guitar lines shimmer and squawk depending on the mood of the song. And it's worth listening closely to the way Lindsey Jordan deploys her instrument. TUCKER: Given the length of time she's been playing it in her young life, you have to figure the sound of her guitar is as important to her as the content of her words. And don't you like me for me? Is there any better feeling than coming clean? And I know myself, and I'll never love anyone else. Anyways, anyways, and if you do find someone better, I'll still see you in everything tomorrow and all the time. SNAIL MAIL: (Singing) Same night, same humility for those that love you. Addressed to a lover who's not paying her much attention now, she asks, is there any better feeling than coming clean? She asks it in such a way that you begin to suspect the narrator didn't get the positive reaction she hoped for, that for some people, coming clean may be too much information. Built with a sturdy guitar hook, the song achieves liftoff with Jordan's soaring vocal. TUCKER: You can get a good sense of the full Snail Mail experience by listening to "Pristine," the album's first single. And I hope whoever it is holds their breath around you 'cause I know I did. SNAIL MAIL: (Singing) Swirl in the white evening sun. That already places her ahead of an awful lot of adults I know. She recently told The New York Times, I have a lot of self-awareness and not a lot of shame. Jordan uses Snail Mail as both a stage name for herself and as the name of her band. This combination - youth plus experience - equals a highly distinctive sound. KEN TUCKER, BYLINE: Lindsey Jordan is 18 years old, and she's been playing guitar for 13 years. All in a haze, couldn't shake it for the rest of the day. SNAIL MAIL: (Singing) Don't even want to fix it now, should know better than to wait around. GROSS: Our rock critic Ken Tucker has a review of the new debut album by the 18-year-old singer-songwriter Lindsey Jordan who records under the name Snail Mail. (SOUNDBITE OF SNAIL MAIL SONG, "FULL CONTROL") ![]()
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