Snail Mail

Lindsey Jordan released her debut EP as Snail Mail—2016’s Habit—before even graduating from high school. Her noisy, emotionally acute indie rock got her signed to New York label Matador, which introduced the world to such like-minded acts as Helium and Liz Phair in the ’90s. But Jordan builds upon their legacy with a distinctly Gen Z perspective: Born in 1999 in Ellicott City, Maryland, she penned 2018’s Lush in her childhood bedroom in Baltimore, emerging with one of the decade’s most roundly acclaimed debut albums. No wonder she returned there during lockdown to write songs for 2021’s Valentine, which introduced shorter, more pointed songs laced with newfound atmosphere via strings and synths. After having vocal polyps surgically removed in late 2021, Jordan discovered that she could hit higher notes—including falsetto—for the first time. “I had no idea I had, like, an upper range,” she told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe in 2026. “It feels like such a gift.” Her newly purified delivery took full flight on 2026’s Ricochet, as heard on the strummy opener “Tractor Beam.”