Snail Mail’s ‘Ricochet’: Spiraling through life

I’ve been listening to Snail Mail since 2022, so the wait for Lindsey Jordan’s newest album, “Ricochet,” was a long one. My first experience with her music was on my 16th birthday, and my dad decided to take a risk and buy me a vinyl of an album I had never heard before.

The vinyl was Jordan’s sophomore album, “Valentine.” Her voice immediately entranced me and led to years of dedicated listening. While the length of the wait for “Ricochet” felt excruciatingly long at times, the reasons for the almost five-year gap between it and “Valentine” were valid.

Jordan developed vocal polyps while on tour for “Valentine.” In an interview with Music Radar, Jordan said that she “didn’t sleep for an entire month. There was no sound coming out.” She underwent intensive speech therapy to learn how to talk and eventually sing again. Though the recovery was strenuous, Jordan said in the interview that “I now have a full falsetto range that I have never had before!”

During her break, Jordan also had her acting debut as Tara in “I Saw the TV Glow,” an A24 movie released May 17, 2024.

Along with expanding her creative horizons, Jordan spent much of the break growing personally.

“When I went to rehab [in 2020] … there was this whole focus on confidence being inward versus outward,” Jordan said in an interview with Las Vegas Weekly. “Outward confidence can come from being pretty, wearing fancy clothes and being adored. But real confidence comes from knowing that you like the person that you are inside and how you treat people.”

“Ricochet” leaves behind themes from her previous albums, like heartbreak and insecurity. Her new lyricism focuses on larger themes of life, such as coping with death and finding personal freedom.

The album opens with “Tractor Beam,” a shimmery song that captures, to a tee, the feeling of wanting to drift out of reality.

The next song, “My Maker,” the second-leading single, follows the path of the first track by diverging further away from her previous themes of heartbreak. She explores feelings of worldly insignificance, “Another year gone by/ What if nothing matters?/ Waitin’ ‘round to die/ To see what happens after.” So, despite Jordan’s levels of improved self-confidence during her break, she does not completely leave behind all the melancholy present in her earlier work.

“Cruise” stood out to me because it perfectly captures the sensation of going on a drive to get rid of restless emotions. Similarly, the next track, “Agony Freak,” stuck out to me because of the emotional sensations it provides. The distorted instrumentals perfectly capture the message of internal frustration.

In “Light on Our Feet,” she brings back themes of love, but this time in a calmer, more secure way. It stands out against the heavier themes of her album, and she brings a stripped-back love song accompanied by guitar and strings, giving a feeling of expansive adoration.

“Dead End” is a turning point in the album. While reflecting on the past when she felt like a deadbeat teenager — which is pretty much how I felt when my dad showed me “Valentine” for the first time — she realizes that, for the first time in her life, the future feels bright.

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According to Todd Dedman from Beats Per Minute, “There’s a sense of leaving the old habits behind across the record, a shift in perspective which is needed with the state of the world today. There’s still beauty out there, and it isn’t even that hard to see if you just take a minute to look for it. The track [Dead End] also serves as the gateway for the sharper, more barbed second half of the record.”

“Butterfly” and “Nowhere” had a spikier feel, almost like they could’ve come from Jordan’s early work, which is heavy with unprocessed, raw emotions.

“Hell” continues down the path of mental restlessness. Jordan conveys the feeling of being trapped in her own emotional “hell,” not as punishment from outside forces, but as a mental maze built by rumination.

Following “Hell” is the title track “Ricochet.” Her vocal delivery is somehow both fragile and sharp, while she delivers lyrics of how memories come back and “Ricochet” through time.

To finish the album is “Reverie.” The song returns to a slower, more dream-like pace seen earlier in the album. She solidifies the central theme of being caught in a spiral of thought and emotion, like the shell featured on the cover of the album.

On first listen, my top three songs were “Agony Freak,” “Ricochet” and “Reverie.” After listening more and fully understanding the themes of the songs, my favorites align more with my dad’s, launching “Dead End” into my top three tracks.

In short, she has leveled up. She’s more confident in her abilities, and that is reflected in her work. Her vocals are clear and present, with lyricism that explores a large range of concepts. Her perfectionism is shown through the guitar riffs and chords. “Ricochet” is a departure from her early work, but not in a bad way. Snail Mail is scheduled to start touring on April 10, 2026, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Rating: 8.5/10

chaffele@miamioh.edu