Valentine
| Snail Mail
Valentine
Valentine is the second studio album by American musician Snail Mail. The album was released on November 5, 2021, through Matador Records. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
Lindsey Jordan’s exquisite second album documents love in all stages, but mostly in disrepair. She takes on a larger and poppier sound while keeping her songwriting dazzlingly sharp and passionate.
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Rolling Stone
Lindsey Jordan proves she’s much more than an indie-guitar prodigy on her excellent second album.
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The New York Times
Snail Mail Turns a Bleeding Heart Into a Spectacular Album.
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Treblezine
Glossier production touches and an expanded instrumental palette make this a more delicate, precious album than Lush. But neither Valentine nor Snail Mail are fragile—indeed, each are capable of delivering chills and earworms in equal measure.
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The Guardian
engaging indie folk.
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NME
Lindsey Jordan's songwriting is as astute as ever, and her exploration of love here is set to a rich palette of explorative strings and synths.
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The Post
Both in terms of her instrumentation and lyrics, this is one of Jordan’s most mature compositions in her discography and is a marker of her tremendous development as a songwriter.
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Spectrum Culture
As we move with songwriter Lindsey Jordan on her sophomore album, she mixes tones and epiphanies and captures that moment where she can't go on, she must go on.
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The Alternative
Valentine arrives as a variation on a winning, but limiting, formula. While the record’s content often feels like a mixed bag, it points to an artist that’s trying to toe the line of growing their scope while not alienating mobs of fans. Snail Mail’s friend and peer Clairo did something similar this year. Valentine is not nearly as far a leap from its predecessor as Clairo’s Sling, but the records feel like kindred spirits. The work of young women fighting to keep from being categorized.
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The Mancunion
Valentine demonstrates that Jordan is in full control of her growth and blossoming, and does this whilst painting a passionate portrait of pain and the hardships of recovery.
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The Line of Best Fit
Snail Mail brilliantly captures the dizzying stakes of loving too young and too hard on Valentine.
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DIY Magazine
A record as hopeful as it is bittersweet.
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PopMatters
Snail Mail’s Lindsey Jordan laughs, cries, and fights her way through Valentine, one of the best albums of the year. Snail Mail is about to get a lot bigger.
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Stereogum
Yet if Valentine is a tragic portrait of one woman’s personal wreckage, what it says about that same person’s creative horizons is wildly exciting. Obsession not only becomes her, it has yielded endless new possibilities for what she might become.
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Consequence Sound
Ultimately, Valentine is the perfect marriage of concept and skill at this point in Snail Mail’s career. For an album about Jordan learning and growing from her past relationships, she certainly sounds like an artist that has undergone profound self-reflection and growth. Jordan’s not only facing her past, but she’s making it something to love.
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Paste Magazine
We’re left with 10 raw, rock-solid tracks that feel just as restorative for us as they clearly do for Jordan. Valentine is proof that a breakup album doesn’t have to be sad—it just has to be powerful.
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Our Culture
Valentine resonates because it is direct without compromising on the blurry dynamics of the circumstances it revolves around. Even when tempted to build layers around a façade, her intense self-awareness grounds everything in an unresolved yet dazzling reality.
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AV Club
Snail Mail’s Valentine is a soul-stirring study in vulnerability and romance.
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Clash Magazine
Though not taking a huge amount of risk with ‘Valentine’, Snail Mail gives us a body of work which will no doubt please dedicated fans of Lush, whilst still carefully introducing electronic elements. Even what Jordan already excelled at – her vocal and lyrical expression, as well as her skill with guitar –does not stagnate, resulting in a fantastic example of how a second album should be.
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Epigram
Lindsey Jordan’s expertly crafted sophomore album is an arrestingly honest exploration of love and heartbreak under the spotlight.
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The Wooster Voices
Expanding the stylistic palette from her indie-rock, 2018 debut, Lindsey Jordan triumphs over her pain by embracing it with grace and maturity.
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Beats Per Minute
Coming in an era of stark political statements, post-punk irony and metallic confrontation with the inner shadow, this drunk and sensitive record takes in the freaks and loners, those whose emotions reflect their perspective in a world that doesn’t care for them.
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The Skinny
After three years of silence, Snail Mail’s eccentric second LP Valentine proves good things come to those who wait.
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Indie is not a Genre
In Valentine, Jordan has crafted a story of heartbreak, with a dramatic rise and fall played out by a remarkable voice and vulnerable lyrics. We should consider ourselves lucky to have Snail Mail walk us through a red-hot pain with this much grace.
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The Ithacan
“Valentine” is an excellent album, both for listeners looking for an outlet to express the heartache that feels like it may never heal and fans of the indie genre looking for a new female voice. “Valentine” dives into complex and inherently feminine emotions in addition to demonstrating the immense potential that Snail Mail has as an artist.
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NYU News
‘Valentine’ is a dynamic move forward for Snail Mail.
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The Young Folks
Valentine is a near-perfect evolution for Snail Mail. Though not completely daring in terms of its lyrics or new sounds, it shows the band is willing to go beyond its indie rock comfort zone to paint a wider picture with their music. Like other eye-opening sophomore efforts (Lorde’s Melodrama or Clairo’s Sling), it’s interesting to see a young artist clearly on the path to realizing their full musical potential and Jordan is inching closer to her own masterpiece. Time will tell what else life has to offer her and how she’ll write about, but at least she and her band have the chops to make something unique.
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Loud and Quiet
Ironically, on ‘Valentine’, Jordan sings “fuck bring remembered” yet Valentine stands out as a complex record, one which should bring her further into the spotlight.
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The Bookish Mutant
Valentine, though rife with stories of love gone wrong, lifted my spirits and restored my hope in Snail Mail. There’s nothing that Lindsey Jordan can’t do, both as a songwriter and a musician, and this album is a beautiful, emotional testament to the fact. I’m so excited to see her live again in April!
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Guitar
HEAVY AND INFECTIOUS, LINDSEY JORDAN’S SECOND IS A MORE MATURE AND TONALLY DIVERSE LISTEN.
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Live4Ever
There’s sadly no quick fix for that, but whilst Valentine is an articulate career leap forward for one artist, it could – and should – be a roadmap for many more dreamers following close behind her.
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Secret Meeting
n Cook, Jordan has seemingly found the perfect foil – and the conscious constructions of Valentine deserve to take Lindsey Jordan beyond the crowds who embraced her first chapter.
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Alt Revue
In short, Jordan has done it again and continues to develop as one of the best in the game today. Valentine is can't miss, even for those unfamiliar with Jordan's previous work. It's also a later entry into this year's Album of the Year sweepstakes, for this reviewer at least.
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Stereoboard
A stint in rehab and a series of heartbreaks later, the 22-year-old now has two excellent albums under her belt that demand not only attention but admiration.
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The Miami Student
Regardless, this album was much better than I expected. It's tight-knit, well written and very sincere, in a way that makes Lindsey Jordan feel like a representation of all of us going through heartbreak.
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No Ripcord
there's no denying that Valentine is a singular statement that is profoundly genuine at every turn.
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Dork
We need more songs about dealing with the everyday love and loss because without it, how do we know how to traverse it? That’s what makes Snail Mail shine. Delivering the most necessary of lessons through the most addictive form of medicine: Very Good Music.
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Hotpress
Opener ‘Valentine’ is a slow burning rock gem full of unequivocal yearning: “fuck being remembered, I was made for you”. ‘Madonna’ sees the Baltimore sensation’s guitar riffs come to life, while ‘c.et.al’ recalls endless late-nights and mental anguish. Jordan’s devoted fans won’t be let down by Valentine. Ironally, they’ll be even more obsessed.
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Ben's Beat
Lush and Valentine stand together as one of the best pairs of sister albums since Ariana Grande’s Sweetener and thank u, next, examining the same thing from two extremely different sides. Jordan’s performances are all highly visceral, and the short but sweet runtime keeps the story from running off the rails – it’s another huge success in a young and promising career.
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Gigwise
The indie-rock darling continues her reign with a record full of lust and longing.
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Stuff
It flies by. Expertly sequenced, it’s a record with a beginning, middle and end that unfolds like an afternoon stroll. To use a different metaphor, it’s an album that washes over you and, if you surrender to its pull, the rip will carry you out towards the horizon.
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Uproxx
Herein lies the tricky balance that Jordan strikes successfully more often than not on Valentine — she’s moved on from childhood, but not all the way. She’s expanded her musical range, but the core intimacy of her songs remains their most urgent attribute. Her heart has been broken, but she has the wherewithal to move forward. She may have reset her boundaries, but Snail Mail’s music is as inviting as ever.
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No More Workhorse
It’s a collection of what used to be referred to as ‘perfect pop’. If there’s any justice Lindsey Jordan and Snail Mail will be on a lot of people’s radar by the end of the year.
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Full Time Aesthetic
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.
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The Weekly Coos
Valentine is an improvement for Snail Mail, with intricate themes and luscious production. Unfortunately, it isn’t for everyone. There are moments of greatness and moments where the music falters due to steering a little close to the comfort zone, but it still works. I implore checking out Snail Mail, as I’ve yet to find any reason myself, regret doing so.
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AllMusic
Taken together, Valentine represents both a bold musical step and a signal that Jordan is ready to move on in more ways than one, at the same time that it leaves some of her distinctiveness behind.
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Bloom
‘Valentine’ marks a more pop musical direction for Snail Mail. No longer condemned to the purity of just guitars and drums. She has infused a more synth-driven sound marking a more mature and experimental way of concocting her lyrics and telling her stories.
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Northern Transmissions
Jordan steps the production up considerably from the toned down Lush but without sacrificing her sharp songwriting skills.
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The Needle Drop
Valentine doesn't offer too much beyond its breakup narrative.
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HHV Magazine
Having proven herself to be an accomplished songwriter and arranger with the LP Lush three years ago, she still has a lot to say on Valentine«and does so with even more musical means than before.
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Moopy
I really didn't love the last Snail Mail album 'Lush', I often struggled to get through it. But this is MUCH BETTER. The addition of synths to cut through the guitars really works, and the songwriting is much tighter.
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Mystic Sons
We genuinely thought that 'Lush' would stand as one of her most beautifully written and awe-inspiring releases, but 'Valentine' blows it away at almost every opportunity. There is something extremely remarkable about her presence on this return, an aesthetic that she has forged herself and delivered through elegant simplicity.
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Slant Magazine
If Lush presented a snapshot of a particular mindset, a woman trapped in a psychological limbo, Valentine captures the blurry nature of an inquiry still in progress.
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Vigour Times
While her pure, clear voice is as expressive and engaging as ever, Valentine is more accessible and less interesting.
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Tinnitist
Leaving room for a long and storied path, Valentine is somehow a jolt and a lovebuzz all at once.
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Stack
At just 22 years of age, Lindsay Jordan – better known as Snail Mail – has become one of indie rock’s most notable figures, a title she strengthens on her second record.
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