【搬运】【译】SPIN评Snail Mail 2018年专辑《Lush》

搬运自：微信公众号【评论搬一堆】（在原文基础上添加了英语原文与排版调整） 

翻译：Nina Wang

校正：Lynn Liu

Snail Mail has become somewhat of a “media darling” since the release of their 2016 EP Habit, signing to Matador Records, landing coveted spots at South By Southwest, and receiving comparisons to nearly every female-fronted, slightly angsty girl group that has ever existed. In interviews, frontwoman Lindsay Jordan repeatedly distances herself from the hype machine that inevitably tries to swallow female musicians whole: “It sometimes feels like I would rather just be compared to male artists in a lot of ways, because there are bands that we could be getting compared to that we’re not, just because I’m a woman.”

自2016年EP《Habit（习惯）》发布以来，Snail Mail可以说是成了 “媒体宠儿”。Snail Mail签约于斗牛先锋唱片公司，在SXSW（South By Southwest）音乐节的名声大噪让人梦寐以求，几乎所有以女性为主唱、略带焦虑的女子组合都被拿来与之比较。采访中，女主唱Lindsay Jordan反复强调，疯狂炒作的结果必定是吞噬全体女音乐人。她说：“有时候我觉得，在很多方面把我跟男歌手对比还更合理一点，可人们从不这么干，就因为我是女的。”

Refusing to partake in the gender-based dichotomy that so often drives rock criticism was smart on Jordan’s part, even if they might help promote, say, a debut album. Instead she leaned on her natural inclinations toward earnestness or her experimentation with marrying dissonance and glistening guitar pop. Her new album Lush pushes boundaries on both fronts.

虽说这种常被当成摇滚批判素材的性别对立有助于宣传她们的处女作，但Jordan做出了拒绝加入性别对立阵营的明智之举。她的成功靠的是自己真诚的天性、或是融入在音乐中的不和谐与电吉他的尝试。《Lush》这张新专辑在这两方面都有所突破。

Compared to 2016’s Habit EP, Lush is largely lacking in gritty garage rock, and instead finds the band leaning into Jordan’s voice. Jordan cites Avril Lavigne as an early influence, and on tracks like “Full Control,” it’s clear she’s a learned student of Lavigne’s particular brand of pop punk vocal affectations, slightly deadpan and slightly warm. Were the album’s lyrical themes not so immediate and melodramatic, Jordan’s swirling guitars and small instrumental flourishes–a tambourine on emo surf-rock anthem “Golden Dream,” a trombone on the morbidly pensive slow-burn “Deep Sea”–calls to mind melancholic folk rock à la The Mamas and The Papas.

与2016年的《Habit 》相比，《Lush》在很大程度上缺乏坚韧不拔的车库摇滚，更多依靠的是Jordan的歌唱。Jordan说自己早期受Avril Lavigne影响很大，从她在“Full Control（完全控制）”等歌中略显严肃又略带温暖的表演都能明显看出，在流行朋克乐的演唱方面，她是Avril特定流派的模范生。如果专辑的抒情歌没有那么感情用事，Jordan缭绕的吉他演奏和丰富的乐器点缀——比如情绪化的冲浪摇滚单曲“Golden Dream（黄金梦）”中的铃鼓和节奏缓慢又充满病态呻吟的“Deep Sea（深海）”中的长号——会让人不禁想起忧郁的民谣摇滚组合The Mamas and The Papas（爸爸妈妈乐队）。

Mentored by none other than Mary Timony, Jordan makes good on the influence of the icon’s guitar tutelage: On “Speaking Terms,” she pairs her softest vocal on the record with a quirky minor chord progression that recalls arcane math-rock progressions, a sonic affectation made all the more impressive by the fact that she elected to record Lush in standard tuning. Single “Pristine” most closely recalls her Timony’s knack for off-color power chords, and instrumentally mirrors the 90s paradigm that Timony helped define, complete with the quiet-loud verse-chorus pattern that so perfectly accented Helium’s disaffected vocals. Which isn’t to say the album feels anachronistic; the instrumentation is sharp and sweet, a contrast to the muddier production on Habit, likely thanks to producer Jake Aron, whose penchant for introspective indie pop leaves a trail of polished, sunny tracks in his wake.

在偶像Mary Timony的指导下，Jordan的吉他表演分外出色：在“Speaking Terms（泛泛之交）”中，她用柔和至极的声音搭配机敏古怪的小和弦，让人想起神秘的数学摇滚，而《Lush》的标准调音让这种声音更具感染力，令人印象深刻。单曲“Pristine（洁净）”中，她运用的Timony变色强力和弦技巧格外显著，乐器演奏上也带有Timony定义的90年代范式，诗歌和合唱的结合平静而激昂，完美地诠释了Helium的不满情绪。这并不是说专辑令人感觉不合时宜；歌曲制作利落而甜美，与《习惯》的复杂混乱形成鲜明对比，而这可能要归功于制作人Jake Aron，他凭借对反省独立流行音乐的喜爱，在清醒时创造了一系列精致明朗的歌曲。

When it comes to sentiment, Jordan is at her best when she’s waxing banal about the social trivialities, heartbreaks and specific memories of her still-teenage life. “Did you tell all your friends? What is it about them? Would they stick around?” she sings on “Stick,” a holdover from Habit. She wields her words with staggering finesse, with almost a birds-eye view of her own high school dramatics.  On “Heat Wave,” she uses an ex-lover’s words against her so directly that you can hear the conversation happening in real-time: “And I hope the love that you find / swallows you whole-y / like you said it might.” And on “Pristine,” lines like “It just feels like the same party every weekend, doesn’t it?” recall fourth-wave emo rockers like Modern Baseball and Tigers Jaw and their painfully quotidien portraits of self-loathing suburban youth.

情绪可是Jordan的拿手菜，平淡无奇的社交生活、心碎经历和还没结束的青春中的某些回忆，她都可侃侃而谈。在留有《Habit》影子的“Stick（坚持）”中，她唱道：“Did you tell all your friends? What is it about them? Would they stick around?（你跟所有朋友都说了吗？他们是什么人？他们会留下来么？）”她一边灵巧玩起了文字游戏，一边俯视自己的高中生活的戏剧。“Heat Wave（热浪）”中，她用了前男友的一句话，伤人之深就像你直接在听他们的对话：“And I hope the love that you find / swallows you whole-y / like you said it might（我希望你找的下一个人／将你完全吞噬／你也说过这有可能）”。 “Pristine（崭新）”中，一句“It just feels like the same party every weekend, doesn’t it?（难道不像每周末的派对在重演？）”让人想起Modern Baseball和Tigers Jaw第四代情绪摇滚音乐人和这些自我厌恶的郊区青年笔下平凡而令人痛苦的肖像画。

But more than an album about youth, Lush is an album about confrontation; it just so happens that the latter gains an extra boost from a touch of the former. It’s an album written entirely in the first person, a one-way conversation aimed directly at its subjects. The “you”s and “I”s inevitably give the album an unmistakable presence, an almost uncomfortable closeness to the parties involved, especially when such dire stakes as teen romance are on the line. At times, her honesty is unbearably raw:  ”Golden Dream,” a beachy loner anthem that recalls early-aughts Sheryl Crow, finds Jordan pontificating on God and sleeplessness, before she pines, “stupid me.” But the record’s brutal frankness belies its lyrical depth–small touches, like the reprisal of the intro track “Anytime” as the album’s closer, leave the listener with a sense of a hopeful, if ambivalent, closure: “Still for you, anytime,” she repeats as the album’s last note resonates into silence. Lush reads like the most literary Livejournal, or perhaps a teenaged Roy Orbison, depending on how the light hits it.

《Lush》不仅是关于青春，还讲述了因青春而萌生的对抗。整张专辑采用第一人称，单向的对话直奔主题。“你”和“我”的反复出现让专辑存在感爆棚，尤其是歌词里恋爱的酸臭味让人感到不适。有时，她又诚实得让人无可奈何。“Golden Dream”中沙滩上的孤独旅人让人想起00年代初的Sheryl Crow；Jordan在歌中大谈上帝和失眠，结尾还唱到“stupid me（我真是傻）”。但专辑野蛮的真诚之下藏有情感细致入微的抒情曲。比如呼应专辑第一首歌的结尾曲“Anytime（任何时候）”，虽然听起来有点矛盾但还是让人充满希望。歌曲最后她反复唱道：“Still for you, anytime（任何时候，我都在这里）”，同时最后一个音符消失在寂静里。这张专辑既像博客的诗意美文，也像青春版Roy Orbison。换个角度看，《Lush》总会给你别样惊喜。