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.

雖說這種常被當(dāng)成搖滾批判素材的性別對立有助于宣傳她們的處女作，但Jordan做出了拒絕加入性別對立陣營的明智之舉。她的成功靠的是自己真誠的天性、或是融入在音樂中的不和諧與電吉他的嘗試?！禠ush》這張新專輯在這兩方面都有所突破。

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.

與2016年的《Habit?》相比，《Lush》在很大程度上缺乏堅韌不拔的車庫搖滾，更多依靠的是Jordan的歌唱。Jordan說自己早期受Avril?Lavigne影響很大，從她在“Full?Control（完全控制）”等歌中略顯嚴(yán)肅又略帶溫暖的表演都能明顯看出，在流行朋克樂的演唱方面，她是Avril特定流派的模范生。如果專輯的抒情歌沒有那么感情用事，Jordan繚繞的吉他演奏和豐富的樂器點(diǎn)綴——比如情緒化的沖浪搖滾單曲“Golden?Dream（黃金夢）”中的鈴鼓和節(jié)奏緩慢又充滿病態(tài)呻吟的“Deep?Sea（深海）”中的長號——會讓人不禁想起憂郁的民謠搖滾組合The?Mamas?and?The?Papas（爸爸媽媽樂隊(duì)）。

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的指導(dǎo)下，Jordan的吉他表演分外出色：在“Speaking?Terms（泛泛之交）”中，她用柔和至極的聲音搭配機(jī)敏古怪的小和弦，讓人想起神秘的數(shù)學(xué)搖滾，而《Lush》的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)調(diào)音讓這種聲音更具感染力，令人印象深刻。單曲“Pristine（潔凈）”中，她運(yùn)用的Timony變色強(qiáng)力和弦技巧格外顯著，樂器演奏上也帶有Timony定義的90年代范式，詩歌和合唱的結(jié)合平靜而激昂，完美地詮釋了Helium的不滿情緒。這并不是說專輯令人感覺不合時宜；歌曲制作利落而甜美，與《習(xí)慣》的復(fù)雜混亂形成鮮明對比，而這可能要?dú)w功于制作人Jake?Aron，他憑借對反省獨(dú)立流行音樂的喜愛，在清醒時創(chuàng)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.

情緒可是Jordan的拿手菜，平淡無奇的社交生活、心碎經(jīng)歷和還沒結(jié)束的青春中的某些回憶，她都可侃侃而談。在留有《Habit》影子的“Stick（堅持）”中，她唱道：“Did?you?tell?all?your?friends??What?is?it?about?them??Would?they?stick?around?（你跟所有朋友都說了嗎？他們是什么人？他們會留下來么？）”她一邊靈巧玩起了文字游戲，一邊俯視自己的高中生活的戲劇。“Heat?Wave（熱浪）”中，她用了前男友的一句話，傷人之深就像你直接在聽他們的對話：“And?I?hope?the?love?that?you?find?/?swallows?you?whole-y?/?like?you?said?it?might（我希望你找的下一個人／將你完全吞噬／你也說過這有可能）”。?“Pristine（嶄新）”中，一句“It?just?feels?like?the?same?party?every?weekend,?doesn’t?it?（難道不像每周末的派對在重演？）”讓人想起Modern?Baseball和Tigers?Jaw第四代情緒搖滾音樂人和這些自我厭惡的郊區(qū)青年筆下平凡而令人痛苦的肖像畫。

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》不僅是關(guān)于青春，還講述了因青春而萌生的對抗。整張專輯采用第一人稱，單向的對話直奔主題。“你”和“我”的反復(fù)出現(xiàn)讓專輯存在感爆棚，尤其是歌詞里戀愛的酸臭味讓人感到不適。有時，她又誠實(shí)得讓人無可奈何?！癎olden?Dream”中沙灘上的孤獨(dú)旅人讓人想起00年代初的Sheryl?Crow；Jordan在歌中大談上帝和失眠，結(jié)尾還唱到“stupid?me（我真是傻）”。但專輯野蠻的真誠之下藏有情感細(xì)致入微的抒情曲。比如呼應(yīng)專輯第一首歌的結(jié)尾曲“Anytime（任何時候）”，雖然聽起來有點(diǎn)矛盾但還是讓人充滿希望。歌曲最后她反復(fù)唱道：“Still?for?you,?anytime（任何時候，我都在這里）”，同時最后一個音符消失在寂靜里。這張專輯既像博客的詩意美文，也像青春版Roy?Orbison。換個角度看，《Lush》總會給你別樣驚喜。