If there’s one line from Snail Mail’s latest release, Valentine, to sum up the ethos of the record, it would be “Nothing stays as good as how it starts” from “Forever (Sailing).” In Snail Mail’s sophomore LP, Valentine, singer Lindsey Jordan holds back zero punches to the heart with an album that details the waves of relationship grief through candid lyrics and a sonic dynamism. The record opens with the chill-inducing title track, whose chorus proclaims “So why’d you wanna erase me, darling valentine? You’ll always know where to find me when you change your mind.” It’s safe to assume that Jordan herself is the narrator here, cementing her permanence in spite of her ex’s best efforts to erase her. This strained romantic tension sets the tone for the rest of the record, which weaves through ten songs in just 31 minutes and 36 seconds. And while there is absolutely no shortage of feelings to be sorted through by Lindsey Jordan, she communicates with vast efficiency and a poignancy tinged with sadness and rage.
Whereas Valentine is centered around the bitter end of a relationship, her 2018 debut, Lush, explored the other side of the romance coin that Valentine has minted. Lush is predicated on a love that Jordan is trying to develop but finds to be a struggle. Both albums are candidly honest and beautifully original—what’s glaringly obvious through both works is that Lindsey Jordan is masterful at dissecting her own feelings and communicating her heart’s tribulations in a straightforward manner. Valentine picks up right where Lush left off and there is not a single beat that has been skipped.
When it comes to the themes of grief that are present throughout Valentine, anger, resentment, acceptance, denial are all to be found throughout the ten songs that comprise the record. Jordan cuts right in with the title track, saturated with feelings of resentment and denial, as she shouts “So why’d you wanna erase me, darling valentine? You’ll always know where to find me when you change your mind” The title track, “Valentine,” is the album’s heaviest song and lays a strong foundation for the rest of the record. While the chorus is the loudest, its tempo oscillates between somber and angry, with Jordan proclaiming “I ruined me for you” at the end of the song before repeating how much she adores her ex. The outro is crucial to understanding the dynamic of the relationship Jordan had with her ex and how far she is from moving on.
Snail Mail performing in 2017 (photo by Edwina Hay)
While Valentine starts out on the angry and heavier side, the songs to follow cycle through stages of depression, reflection, and finally acceptance with a softer tempo. Notably, the album’s fifth song, “Forever (Sailing),” is a soft dreamy track that features funky guitars and catchy synth. In the lyrics, Lindsey reflects back on her time with her ex and what they went through together. “So much destruction/Look at what we did/That was so real/And you don’t just forget.” In the slightly more upbeat track of “Glory,” Jordan dives into the more complicated dynamics of love with the brilliant juxtaposition of “you own me/you owe me” throughout the song, which has a bit of a 90’s alt bend.
There are a number of symbolic elements present throughout Valentine, including the color light blue as well as references to Madonna paintings and reaching a state of nirvana, all which work to make the album as cohesive as possible. Perhaps most striking is the figure of Mia, who is mentioned a few times throughout Valentine, first in “c. et. al” and later the title of the tenth and final song of the record where she serves as the title of the record’s final track. While Mia may not be the name of an actual person, she symbolizes the love that Jordan had for her person. “Mia, don’t cry/I love you forever/But I’ve gotta grow up now/No, I can’t keep holding on to you anymore/Mia, I’m still yours.”
Valentine’s cover features Jordan in a cupid-esque outfit wearing a beautiful pink blazer with a corsage on her left with a frilly white and black pinstripe blouse and a black bow tied around the neckline. She is positioned against a light red background and has a serious and confident expression, looking straight into the camera with her mouth slightly open. The cover is extremely fitting for the album, effectively communicating along with the title that this is an album about heartbreak. Snail Mail has yet again proven herself to be an essential and resonant voice in indie music with a penchant for penning her feelings and experiences in a manner that is captivating, well-thought out, and quite catchy.
Cover art for “Zorked,” the new solo album by Julia Shapiro
Zorked (adj.) – what happens when you end up thunderbaked, as in extremely stoned–or in any situation where you feel not sober. You can feel so tired you’re zorked.
The dictionary-style entry for the title of Julia Shapiro‘s latest solo effort, Zorked, defines the word but also goes a long way toward previewing the feel of the album. There is a stoner feel about the record — not as heavy as stoner metal, or as meandering as psychedelic rock, but somehow fitting right in with those two genres while not belonging to either of them. Rather, the music here can be loosely classified as shoegazey-dream pop.
Shapiro is well-known as a multi-instrumentalist, singing and playing guitar in Chastity Belt and Childbirth, and drumming in Who Is She? Her first solo record, Perfect Version, came out in 2019. After eight years in Seattle, it was time for a change, and Shapiro moved to LA…in March of 2020, which had to be a disorienting and isolating experience.
Julia Shapiro performing in 2017 (photo by Edwina Hay)
From the outset, Zorked has a dark tinge, with the lead track “Death (XIII)” beginning with throbbing guitars and Shapiro’s voice echoing out from behind them: “This is the end.” But overall, the record is less ‘apocalypse’ and more ‘never-ending sigh.’ In “Hellscape,” the verses speak of unpleasant, edgy boredom: “Wake each day / stare at my phone / the burden of being alive” and “take a walk / call a friend / the burden of staying awake.” It’s a combination of laziness and anxiety I think is extremely relatable.
Not everything is distortion; some tracks show a folk influence, and are suited to the woods. There are tremolo-laden solos (”Someone”) a spoken word track (”Reptile, Reptile”) and really interesting chord progressions (”Do Nothing About It.”) With no tracks over five minutes the record doesn’t get bogged down.
If a city is a sound, I didn’t really hear LA in this record, at first, until reading the press release for the album via her Bandcamp which calls it “a wasteland melting in slow-motion,” and that I definitely hear. Where Perfect Version was less heavy, more of a romp, these tracks feel endless. Not meandering, but without firm resolution. And that’s a perfect analogy for life these days — stoned and trying to figure out a direction, while waiting for the other shoe to drop.
In less time than it takes to sit through a sitcom, Laura Jane Grace delivers seven incisive and eclectic tunes on her new solo EP, At War With the Silverfish. It ends before you’re ready but stays with you long after its 15 minutes are up.
Musically, the record never stays in one place long, but Grace’s lyrical prowess ties it all together. “Not gonna win/but I’m in the game,” she sings on the opening tune “Three of Hearts,” probably capturing a lot of people’s mindsets at the moment. Things get a little lighter on “Lolo 13” and its description of a dream about love interests, real or imagined (“Are you flirtin’?/I’m still not certain”), who are lost forever in the bright light of morning. Insistent kick drum punches and 4-on-the-floor beats pulse throughout, pushing but not overtaking Grace’s lightly hypnotic strumming.
She detours into a bit of baroque pop with “Electro-Static Sweep.” Deft string arrangements provide some of the titular “sweep,” as does Grace, as she croons the verses and pours on a bit of melodrama for the chorus. Her simple acoustic strumming and the loose drumming keep the tune moored on a solid dirtfloor groove.
Laura Jane Grace performing in 2019 (photo by Kate Hoos)
“Day Old Coffee” is perfect powerpop. There are some thrilling Paul Weller vibes here and Grace’s lyrics are the stuff of pure punk brilliance—endearingly snotty, grimly funny, completely relatable, and totally devastating: “Day old coffee/microwave to boiling/pour it on my eyeballs/and boil my dumbshit brains out.” This song could last 10 minutes and never lose its impact, but just as you’re ready to scream the chorus at the top of your lungs one more time, the tune ends abruptly. That’s how you do it.
She returns to the simple acoustic-and-voice arrangement for “Smug FuckFace,” allowing the focus to rest squarely on her lyrics, which, again, seem to sum it all up in one poignant bummer of a couplet: “Hey, you, sitting there with your smug fuckface/Will anything ever be good again?”
Most tunes on At War With the Silverfish don’t adhere to a neat verse, chorus, verse structure. Some are just a few lines of brutally insightful lyrics atop simple and affecting music that either makes you stomp your feet or hang your head. It’s where many of us are at now: stealing joy where we can but also battered by the world. We get what Grace can give us right now, and it is a deceptively deep well.
Earworms abound on the latest rager from Nihiloceros, Self Destroy. The vocal interplay between guitarist Mike Borchardt and bassist Alex Hoffman is the one of the band’s strongest points—with guest vocals from Gillian Visco (shadow monster) and Stephanie Gunther (Desert Sharks, Murder Tag), the vocals hit a thrilling new level. We previously reviewed the infectious single “Mammal Science Fiction” which featured plenty of their signature grunge power pop (read here).
A prolific and energetic live act around Brooklyn, Self Destroy is the first Nihiloceros release in four years and it’s worth the wait. The band sounds confident, playing hard, but dynamically, on some of their strongest tunes to date.
Restrained strumming and plucking from Borchardt and Hoffman open the record on “Dirty Homes” while drummer Chris Gilroy brings the big beat. The melodic verses explode into a screamy chorus of repeated “You!”s. Hoffman does some nifty, discordant bass work as the song builds to the end. Lead single “iamananimal” is a highlight of Self Destroy. Featuring Borchardt and Hoffman in harmony during the verses and then a call-and-response chorus, the song is already lodging itself into your brain folds before Visco takes it home with the end chorus, her first of two featured vocals.
In addition to lending their voices, both Visco and Gunther helped co-write a couple tunes on Self Destroy. Visco’s “Halfway Human” is a sludgy basher where she and Hoffman harmonize through the verses and choruses. Gunther (who plays with Borchardt in Murder Tag) co-wrote and sang on “Baby Teeth,” one of the hardest-rocking tunes on the record. The album closes with “Odie,” a melodic slow-dance waltz that uncoils into a 4/4 pop punk chorus, which features Borchardt, Hoffman, and Gunther alternately singing and screaming “Powder bomb/clap clap gone.”
Perhaps due to the pandemic, Hoffman and Gilroy also took on engineering duties for this record. Gilroy engineered the guitars and bass, while Hoffman recorded the vocals. Drums were tracked by Erik Braund at Braund Studios in Brooklyn. Gilroy also mixed the record at Douglass Recording in Brooklyn. While Gilroy was key in the making of this record, drum duties are now handled by German Sent when the band plays live.
The band’s growth as songwriters is apparent on Self Destroy, without losing any of their trademark boundless energy. The six tunes rock and demand your ears hear them again and again.
LA based-band Mini Trees is really the solo effort of songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Lexi Vega. Raised by musician parents, Vega started young, and her talents are well-showcased on Always In Motion, the debut full length album released under the Mini Trees name (now out on Run For Cover Records). Previous single and EP releases have paved the way for these ten tracks, as well as Vega’s experience as a drummer in various bands.
This genre may be widely described as “bedroom pop,” but Mini Trees is self-described as “living room pop” which honestly fits better. The music is open and airy, more suited for lying on a couch beside a sunny window with curtains fluttering in the breeze, rather than curled up in bed sleeping. Here I’m reminded of Grouper, or maybe Hanne Hukkleberg.
Right from the start, with lead track “Moments In Between,” listeners are treated to ethereal soundscapes and lovely melodies. The music is never untethered, however — Vega’s bonafides as a drummer are very evident here. The production by Jon Joseph is glassy rather than glossy, light scattering across musical panes without ever being slick.
“Everyone’s nervous these days,” Vega sings on the second track “Doomsday,” and it’s a feeling captured throughout. There is a tremulous quality in the vocals and lyrics, in contrast to the surefootedness of the music, and it works very well. There is probably a lot going on in these tracks — I’ve never managed to comprehend programming synths or beats, it seems like magic — yet Vega manages to make it all sound so simple, her beautifully layered vocals coasting along waves of synth and guitar.
On the final track, Vega tells us “there’s no certainty until we reach the end,” yet the end of the album feels like a comma, rather than a period. Vega says of this (on the Mini Trees Bandcamp page): “Over the course of the album I teeter-totter between having questions and wanting answers, but the resolution is to be okay with not knowing.” Throughout the album, Vega uses the songs on Always In Motion to explore themes of identity, faith and perseverance.
Action Park may be a New York (Long Island, in particular) based band, but they’ve taken their name from the infamously dangerous waterpark in New Jersey, and it suits them well. I grew up going to amusement parks (Cedar Point baby!) and this record reminds me of fun, carefree late-teenage years, when we had the freedom of a car and the money from a summer job to take ourselves out to the roller coasters; yet still something bittersweet hung in the air, youth quickly slipping away with the season. In this way, the title of Action Park’s debut album You Must Be This Tall To Die is a fitting pun.
Billing themselves as “sad but rad,” Action Park are a four-piece consisting of Bobby DeQuillfeldt and Matt Riley on guitar and vocals, Vinny Carriero on bass and vocals, and Aaron Pagdon on drums. They declare their new album is “bound to be the soundtrack to your own personal comeback and then inevitable decline,” and You Must Be This Tall To Die is indeed filled with peppy, poppy hooks accompanied by sometimes less-than-peppy lyrics. Fans of NOFX and Lifetime will find a lot to love here.
Lead track “Wrong” kicks the record off in a catchy manner and that’s how the ride stays for the most part. The general vibe is that of 90’s skate punk with driving, constant guitars, melodic solos, and lively bass pinning things down, all behind shouty-singy vocals with plenty of ‘woah-oh-ohs.’ The fill-laden drums provided by Pagdon are a highlight, keeping the energy kinetic. Standout songs include “24 Months” (which is paired with “Wrong” as the first single) “Call Waiting” and “Breathless (Afrin and Sleeping Alone).”
The only misstep is in the last track, “Vacation Photos”, with an interlude of sampled dialog from Bojack Horseman that distracts from the music, but the intro/outro samples of vintage Action Park advertisements at the beginning and end of the record work perfectly to bookend what is overall an enjoyable romp.
