SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: BLONDSHELL – VIOLINS

BLONDSHELL
VIOLINS
PARTISAN RECORDS

Blondshell fans are going to eat well this fall season, because singer Sabrina Teitelbaum has just arrived with a fresh batch of music: her new album, Violins.

This contemplative record oozes with experimentation, from soft piano notes to rhythmic acoustic strums to post-punk-style guitar distortions. Through it all, Teitelbaum adds her mellow, gritty vocal bravado.

The title track, “Violins,” sounds like the type of song you play on your car radio during a reflective, calm, rainy night drive. Mild acoustic and electric strums complement Teitelbaum’s organic inflection, gradually breaking into harsher riffs, until they fade to one shrill, twinkling high note at the piece’s finish.

The album then ventures into an edgy, warping bass at the start of “Heart Has To Work So Hard.” Centered around complicated relationships, the piece particularly packs a punch in the second verse, where the best friend secretly twists a knife, symbolizing the heavy side effects of an emotionally turbulent companionship.

Teitelbaum’s wistful intonations accompany a soft piano in “Lucky.” This is the type of song to listen to while walking on a sunny day, recalling memories both sweet and painful. “New Shape” carriers a similar flavor, with Teitelbaum’s siren-like harmonizations at the end, bringing an airy guitar and a gentle piano into a warm embrace.

To emphasize Blondshell’s experimentation with sound, there seem to be some post-punk-style elements in the beginning of “Sea Legs,” the start of “New Age Trojan Horse,” and after the first verse in “Two Fried.” More specifically, in a few portions of these three tracks, the guitar sounds synthetic and slightly melancholic, a melody that’s usually associated with the post-punk genre. It’s especially interesting to hear it in “Two Fried” because it’s anything but moody. Here, Teitelbaum sings about spilled-on dresses and how good her legs look. Her witty, confident songwriting even gives the harmony an uplifting country tone.

If you want to delve further into Blondshell’s rock talents, the electric guitar in “Stone Fruit” billows through the piece’s bridge like a smoke cloud from a bonfire. However, the tempo slows down in “Knotted,” as the songwriting and instruments rest with a painful reality. It’s the type of music you play while staring at the ceiling, during a quiet night at home. The following track, “Reinstall,” complements the previous piece’s steady tempo until its halfway point, returning to the record’s alt-rock flair.

As though replicating the acceptance of life’s highs and lows, Teitelbaum’s voice reaches its highest peak and finishes off the album with “Fur Elise,” combining her signature, raw crooning with cleaner, self-assured high notes.

To be honest, it was hard to write this review for Violins. Despite the rich imagery in Blondshell’s lyrics, her songs seem to transcend language entirely, as though her album is an emotion of its own: complex but prominent, as though this project were living and breathing, almost human. As a result, it is imperative that old and new fans absorb Violins in all its realness.

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