Snail Mail: Ricochet (red vinyl)

Why you'll love it

The indie shop edition comes on red vinyl in a gatefold jacket, with a printed inner sleeve and a folded poster. It is Lindsey Jordan's first Snail Mail album in more than four years, produced by Momma's Aron Kobayashi Ritch at Mitch Easter's Fidelitorium studio.

This edition

Indie shop edition, red vinyl
Gatefold jacket
Printed inner sleeve and a folded poster
Matador pressing (cat# OLE2209LPE)

About the album

Lindsey Jordan spent the best part of four years working out how she wanted to write this one, trying to put something down every day on tour and building nine of the eleven songs melody first, before there was a single lyric. She took them to Fidelitorium Recordings in North Carolina, the studio owned by Mitch Easter, and recorded with producer Aron Kobayashi Ritch, plugging into his collection of old amplifiers: a 1970s tweed Fender Princeton, a Twin Reverb, a Vox AC30 and more. Momma's Etta Friedman did the cover art. The patience shows in every chorus.

The result is warm, glowing guitar rock about time, uncertainty and feeling small in a big world. "My Maker" and "Dead End" got the videos, "Agony Freak" nods to the San Diego band Pinback, and the title track sits near the end like a door left open. Some of the guitars have reminded critics of the Goo Goo Dolls, which, depending on your age, is either a surprise or exactly the point. Metacritic has it at 71.