Snail Mail Comes Blazing Out of the Gate on Lush

When writing about any artist just out of high school, one naturally wants to be careful not to dwell too much on the person’s age. That’s even more the case when the music’s as well-crafted as Lush, the debut LP from Baltimore indie rocker Lindsey Jordan, alias Snail Mail. It’s an album you’d probably never guess was penned by a 19-year-old. It’s tough not to be wowed by what Jordan is doing right now, and the composure and drive with which she’s doing it. 

Born in 1999 and raised in the Charm City suburb of Ellicott City, Md., Jordan picked up the guitar at age 5. In her teens, she took lessons over in D.C. with Helium and Ex Hex guitar goddess Mary Timony, whose footsteps she’s now following as a Matador Records signee.

Last year, Jordan was featured in The New York Times as part of a roundtable of female musicians currently making noise in and beyond the indie world. Last month, Lush came out, and Matador’s pushing it hard. When the Scene reaches Jordan via phone, she and her bandmates, bassist Alex Bass and drummer Ray Brown, are  in Twin Falls, Idaho, “zooming to Seattle” to tape an in-studio performance at the internationally renowned KEXP-FM. 

By Jordan’s estimation, Sunday’s Mercy Lounge gig (moved up from the smaller High Watt) is already the fourth or fifth show Snail Mail has played in Nashville in its brief three-year history. The trio will be on the road the rest of this year, and in February, they’ll culminate the album-release cycle with a show at Madison Square Garden in New York, opening for Aughts post-punk luminaries Interpol alongside fellow Bandcamp-generation up-and-comers Car Seat Headrest.

If that was dizzying to read, imagine living it. “It’s a little overwhelming,” admits Jordan, who speaks quickly and directly like the East Coaster she is. Snail Mail’s music, while not stressed or hurried, feels similarly straight-shooting in intent and execution. 

Where the group’s debut single “Thinning,” off the six-song 2016 EP Habit, was dazzling in its simplicity — a three-minute slice of lo-fi pop perfection, a little Sonic Youth, a lot Joy Division — Lush impresses with its fullness. Composed solely by Jordan (“I write alone, and prefer it,” she says) its 10 serpentine tunes share a romantic, daydreamy quality, but she carefully chooses spots where it’s time either to rock out or bring it down.

 Rather than adhering strictly to a verse-chorus-verse structure, the songs tend to go by feel, ensnaring the listener with low-key curveballs — a slight shift in tempo, an unexpected chord change — that end up making the songs. Check album standouts “Speaking Terms” and “Golden Dream” and you’ll catch it. With its crisp, spacious production, clear singing and delicate, graceful playing, Lush feels thoughtful, never overcooked. As Jordan tells it, sounding this effortless took significant effort.

“I’m a harsh judge of myself with everything — after a bad show, my evening is ruined,” Jordan says. “So with the recording, I spent a really long time dialing in my sound to get it perfect on each of the songs. I didn’t go in with a sound in mind — I just wanted it to not be too effects-heavy. Something kind of clean, also a little raunchy and hard, but not distorted at all. It’s never so much about getting the take that freaks me out — it’s making it sound as good as it could possibly be.”

In contrast to being exacting about tones and textures, Jordan’s lyrics in Snail Mail are elliptical and open-ended. They’re the main aspect of this otherwise fully-formed-on-arrival band in which there’s obvious room to grow moving forward. Steeped more in phrasing than message, the words sound nice, but good luck trying to parse them — much less sing along at a show.

“I change the lyrics every time we play live,” Jordan says, laughing. “The grammatical structures of the songs … changing the flow of them live I find fun, because it throws everyone off. And keeps me entertained.”