What does Jordana sound like?

A bedroom pop frown turned indie pop anthem maker.

The review of Jordana – Face the Wall

Jordana has been making lots of different styles of indie pop from her bedroom demos and homebrew sounds. Now that she’s been somewhat discovered, “Face The Wall” sees the singer-songwriter transition from lo-fi sounds to something fuller in sound. Jordana has decided this time around, big beats are the way forward.

Everything about “Face the Wall” is percussive and the beats are the backbone of the album more than usual. This means if Jordana wants to go into pop guitar anthems ala “Catch My Drift”, she’s using slamming tom drums. If she wants to hang it loose like an early 2000’s breezy alt-rock track like “I Mean That”, it’s a mixture of electric drum pads and cute ska beats. It’s as if the percussion upsell to something bigger and fuller has been the driver behind the album. As a result, guitars sit further back in the mix over synths until later in the album. Smooth alt-rock numbers like “To The Ground”, “Why” and “Difficult For Now” have noodling guitar or bass riffs that take more centre stage but the synths still largely own the space. As a result, “Face the Wall” feels like a ten song rock album wearing a smooth synth-pop dress.

This sheep in wolf clothing approach means that Jordana can switch up mood, feel, aggression and emotion easily by shifting around whether guitars push forward or synths lead. Without much variation, Jordana’s voice will be subtle and often hazy in an effortlessly too-cool-for-school way. That means some fantastic synth work such as the vocal chopped chord progressions in opener “Pressure Point” feel effortlessly involved. Simultaneously though, singing about smoking a joint feels a bit low bar and I didn’t really click with the lyrical content of the album nearly as much as its rhythmic flow.

There is a lovely niche cut out for Jordana because as she moves chameleon-like across a broad spectrum of indie pop to alt-rock via summery uptempo anthems, she can make all the styles work. What’s most impressive is that the album sounds and feels very cohesive as she does it which is no meagre achievement either. This is an album to have loud in the car on a sunny day or when you are getting pumped for a night out and it’s friendship time. Whilst perhaps more simple in its approach than her previous work, that’s no bad thing. It’s her feel-good release.

Recommended track: Catch My Drift

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