By Lindsay Gould, Staff Writer
Artist: Del Water Gap
Album: Chasing the Chimera
Favorite Tracks: “Small Town Joan of Arc,” “We Don’t Have To Take It Slow,” “Ghost In the Uniform,” and “Eagle In My Nest”
For Fans Of: Holly Humberstone, Briston Maroney, Hippo Campus
Del Water Gap’s Chasing the Chimera — The Art of Becoming
On his third studio album, Chasing the Chimera, Samuel Holden Jaffe — the creative force behind Del Water Gap — invites listeners into a softer, more introspective world. Known for his ability to balance raw vulnerability with shimmering indie sensibility, he has long been a staple in the alternative-pop scene. But on Chasing the Chimera, he trades the sun-soaked windows-down anthems of his earlier work for something quieter, gentler, and more intimate. This music is for twilight, the moment when the day fades and the sky blushes pink and orange.
From Humble Beginnings to the Spotlight
The story of Del Water Gap has always been one of reinvention. Jaffe, now 32, first stumbled upon the name “Del Water Gap” as a teenager, scrawled on the back of a box truck. Only later did he realize its connection to the Delaware Water Gap, a fittingly transitional boundary between worlds, much like his music. What began as a band went though several iterations before Jaffe decided to carry the project forward as a solar artist.
While studying music and production at NYU, Jaffe met fellow songwriter Maggie Rogers, who briefly joined Del Water Gap for a six-month stint. Jaffe’s solo breakthrough came in 2020 with “Ode to A Conversation Stuck in Your Throat,” a song that distilled his knack for capturing emotional nuance in just a few lines. That track was later featured on the Amazon Prime show “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” which is where I first discovered my love for his music. This feature helped bring him into the mainstream, leading to a recent gig opening for Niall Horan on tour.
Now, with Chasing the Chimera, Jaffe returns not as a rising artist but as a fully realized songwriter searching for the next horizon.
The Meaning Behind the Myth
The Album’s title is a telling one. In Greek mythology, the Chimera is a fire-breathing hybrid, part-lion, part-goat, and part-serpent. A creature of contradiction and constant transformation. To “chase the Chimera” is to pursue something impossible, to reach for perfection that forever slips away. For Jaffe, that pursuit is both artistic and personal. Across the album’s 41 minutes, he explores what it means to evolve without losing yourself, to reconcile the versions of who you’ve been and who you hope to become.
Musically, that story comes alive through an astonishing variety of textures and tones. One song might develop with velvety saxophone and low, R&B inspired vocals (“Please Follow”), while another strips everything back to a bare piano and heartbreak (“We Don’t Have to Take it Slow”). The result is an album, like its mythological namesake, that refuses to be just one thing. Yet despite its shifting forms, Chasing the Chimera feels cohesive — a seamless, no-skip journey through vulnerability, self-doubt, and hope.
“How To Live” – The Human Condition in Three and a Half Minutes
The album’s lead single, “How to Live,” simplifies his lyrical brilliance into one deceptively simple question: how do we exist meaningfully in a world that constantly asks for more? He sings, “There’s gold under the rust / Figuring out just how to live,” a reminder that beneath our flaws is something precious, if only others were patient enough to see it. Later, his voice belts with honesty as he admits, “I made a little money, but it’s never enough / She’ll tell me that she wants me, but it ain’t enough.” These lines mirror the album’s central theme: the restless feeling of striving for more. Whether it’s success, love, or self-acceptance, Del Water Gap captures the ache of wanting more and the endless chase toward an ever-shifting ideal. It’s existential, yes, but never cynical, instead, he offers a gentle kind of optimism and the belief that even in imperfection, there’s beauty worth chasing.
A Softer Kind of Honesty
Del Water Gap’s earlier releases thrived on immediacy: upbeat tempos, crisp drum beats, and the kind of choruses that make you want to sing along in your room like no one is listening. Chasing the Chimera, by contrast, feels like an inward turn. The production is lush but restrained, built on warm synths, delicate percussion, and acoustic flourishes that let Jaffe’s voice take center stage.
From the opening track, there’s a sense of submersion – like surfacing from underwater to take a deep, clarifying breath. The songs unfold slowly, allowing emotional truths to emerge through silence as much as through sound. On “We Don’t Have To Take it Slow,” he trades grand gestures for intimate reflection. His voice trembles over a simple piano line as he confesses, “I wanna tell you I’m sorry / I never told you I loved you when I still could.” The song captures the quiet devastation of hindsight and the words unsaid, the moments that slip away while we’re busy trying to be our best selves.
Love, Power, and the Myth of the Unreachable
Elsewhere, Jaffe turns his gaze toward love’s more complex dynamics. “Small Town Joan of Arc” is one of the album’s standout tracks, painting a vivid portrait of an untouchable woman — courageous, magnetic, and always slightly out of reach. “I’m a pool boy with a rake / She’s an empress on her throne,” he sings, at once self-effacing and infatuated. It’s a modern-day fairy tale of devotion and imbalance, told with cinematic detail. The reference to Joan of Arc isn’t incidental. In his eyes, she’s a symbol of strength and conviction, the kind of person who seems to burn brighter than everyone else. Loving her is both exhilarating and exhausting; it’s that kind of all-consuming passion that leaves you breathless and little bit undone. Jaffe doesn’t shy away from the pain of the pursuit, but leans into it, suggesting that perhaps the beauty of love lives precisely in its impossibility.
A New Emotional Maturity
What makes Chasing the Chimera so compelling is not just its sonic evolution, but its emotional depth. Jaffe has always written about relationships, from the lustful playfulness of “Perfume” to the smooth and sultry lyrics of “Glitter & Honey.” Even tracks like “All We Ever Do Is Talk” and “Hurting Kind” explored miscommunication and obsession through a glossy indie-pop lens. Here, though, the tone is different. These songs don’t hide behind bright melodies or clever wordplay. They confront passion and vulnerability head-on. Jaffe’s lyrics feel lived-in, weary yet hopeful. There’s an emotional precision to the way he captures the push and pull of connection, the fear of inadequacy, and the quiet courage it takes to keep showing up.
An Artist in Motion
If Jaffe’s earlier work was about arrival — finding his voice, his audience, his sound — Chasing the Chimera is about what comes after. What do you do once you’ve “made it”? How do you continue to grow without losing yourself in the process? The album offers no neat answers, only the assurance that the chase itself, the yearning and stumbling in the dark, is where life happens. In that sense, Chasing the Chimera feels like a conversation with his previous albums. It’s more mature, more patient, and ultimately more rewarding. There’s still the echo of pop hooks and the warmth of his familiar melodies, but they’re in service of something deeper: a meditation on the art of becoming.
Final Thoughts
At 41 minutes, Chasing the Chimera is a concise but remarkably cohesive body of work that rewards both casual listening and close attention. It’s the kind of record that grows with you, offering new shades of meaning with each replay. Samuel Holden Jaffe has never been afraid to change his sound, but here he does so with striking self-awareness. In chasing the Chimera, that ever-elusive, ever-changing muse, he doesn’t just redefine his sound; he redefines what it means to be Del Water Gap.
It’s tender, transformative, and achingly human. In other words, it’s exactly the kind of music we need right now.
