Album Review: Chasing The Chimera

Written by Ali DeLambo

Image courtesy of Spotify

Samuel Holden Jaffe has spent the past decade shaping Del Water Gap into a project defined by confession, volatility, and the tenderness he offers only when he cannot help himself. Emerging from New York’s DIY scene, he built a following through raw live shows and songs that feel like diary entries written on the edge of a breakdown. His 2021 self-titled album marked a breakthrough, followed by a steady rise as both an emotional historian and a chronicler of modern romantic chaos.

Part of Del Water Gap’s magnetism comes from the tension between polish and vulnerability. Jaffe writes with the compulsive honesty of someone who cannot help but document his own contradictions, and he performs with a theatrical physicality that has become a calling card. His collaborations, including early work with Maggie Rogers and a growing production portfolio, have sharpened his sonic instincts, but he remains most compelling when unraveling in real time. Chasing the Chimera feels like the culmination of these years of shapeshifting, experimentation, and growth.

The album spirals through regret, vulnerability, and self-reckoning. It holds Del Water Gap’s signature cocktail of cinematic guitar work and breathless confession, but this time the stakes feel heavier. He is no longer simply documenting heartbreak. He is interrogating the person he was when he caused it.

“Marigolds” opens the record with scorched intimacy. Jaffe’s narrator circles an old relationship with equal parts guilt and longing, replaying images like a camera roll he cannot delete. The city burns around two lovers clinging to one another, and the memory still drops his stomach. His falsetto flickers between apology and self-protection, creating a tension that sets the emotional temperature for the rest of the album.

“Small Town Joan of Arc” zooms out to portraiture. Jaffe sketches a woman held together by caffeine, cigarettes, Lexapro shortages, and sheer willpower. The song could collapse under its own romanticism, but it stays grounded by his close-up observations: a dog shared with an ex, a town lined with greasy weather, and a love that feels both protective and doomed. It is one of the album’s most vivid character studies.

“How to Live” turns inward. The writing is sharpest here, with biblical imagery and modern anxieties colliding in a restless spiral. He sings about counting stones like the architects of Pompeii and then pivots into late-night hotel-lobby confessions. The tension between wanting to be good and knowing he is not is the crux of the song. It is the closest Del Water Gap has come to writing a thesis statement for his own self-destruction.

“We Don’t Have to Take It Slow” softens the mood without losing the ache. He traces the contours of intimacy that move too fast and then not at all, where vulnerability comes in gasps. The chorus becomes a plea for surrender, not in romance but in giving up the pretense of control. It is understated, warm, and quietly devastating.

“Please Follow” shifts into a more anthemic register. Jaffe leans into the push-pull of wanting someone to witness your life while refusing to slow down for them. The song carries his trademark blend of lust and self-reproach, anchored by a chorus built for late-night drives.

“Eastside Girls” brings the tempo up and the mood sideways. It is a snapshot of New York nightlife, but beneath the swagger sits a sense of displacement. Jaffe sings about girls who move too fast through dim bars, and although the track is catchy, it hides a loneliness he does not name outright. The production here is crisp and pulsing, giving the album a well-timed burst of momentum.

“New Personality” is one of the darker corners of the record. The narrator tries on new selves like outfits, never sure which one fits or which one was discarded for a reason. It is a song about shapeshifting when you are terrified of being seen, and the minimalist arrangement makes the emotional unraveling feel even sharper.

Never Speak Again plunges into the aftermath. It explores the kind of break where silence becomes a weapon and a refuge. Jaffe sings with a clenched vulnerability, sounding like someone who has run out of excuses but still wants to be forgiven. The track’s sparse production allows his voice to carry the full emotional weight.

“Ghost in Uniform” is one of the album’s most atmospheric tracks. It deals with haunting in a literal and figurative sense, blurring the line between memory and apparition. The uniform becomes a metaphor for the roles we perform long after they stop fitting. Jaffe sings through a fog as if he is chasing a version of himself he barely recognizes.

“Waiting on the Day” slows the album into a meditative space. It is a song about anticipation that feels almost suspended in time. Jaffe leans into patience, resignation, and the hope that something will shift if he can just endure a little longer. The track functions as the emotional spine of the album.

“Damn” brings the heat back. It is biting, rhythmic, and self-aware. Jaffe uses humor and frustration to mask a deeper grief, and the production mirrors that tension with sharp percussion under a blurred-edge vocal. The hook is simple but lingers long after the track ends.

“Eagle in My Nest” closes the record on its most mythic note. The song blends cinematic instrumentals with lyrics that feel almost surreal. The eagle becomes a symbol for the intrusive presence of fear, desire, or destiny, depending on how you read it. Jaffe ends the album not with resolution but with a sense of awe and uncertainty. It is a fitting conclusion for a project named after a creature that is always just out of reach.

Chasing the Chimera is Del Water Gap’s most cohesive and emotionally articulate album to date. It captures the blurry line between regret and revelation while refusing to offer easy redemption. Jaffe invites listeners into the mess without cleaning up after himself, and that honesty is what gives the album its weight. In chasing the chimera, he has found something real.

As a full body of work, Chasing the Chimera operates with a clarity that Del Water Gap has been circling for years. The album moves with the intention of a narrative even when its characters and timelines blur, suggesting that the chimera he is chasing is not a single idea but the sum of every fractured version of himself. Jaffe leans into contradictions without trying to resolve them. He allows guilt to sit beside desire, nostalgia to shadow resentment, and tenderness to exist in the same breath as evasion. This refusal to flatten his emotional landscape is what gives the record its depth. The songs feel connected not through repetition, but through a shared willingness to sit in the discomfort of memory and the mess of personal mythmaking.

The album also marks a shift in Jaffe’s production and vocal delivery. His earlier work often embraced scrappiness, but here he leans into precision without sacrificing rawness. The arrangements are cleaner, the choruses more deliberate, and the emotional architecture more carefully built. Still, the edges stay jagged in the places that matter. Jaffe uses restraint as a narrative tool, letting silences, minimal instrumentation, and subtle vocal catches reveal what he does not say outright. The result is an album that sounds grown, but not resolved, polished but still searching. Chasing the Chimera feels like the work of an artist stepping fully into his own voice while acknowledging that he is still learning how to live with it.