Blondshell at Band on the Wall
Johnny James, Managing Editor
“An alt-rock star is born” said The Guardian upon the release of Blondshell’s enonymous debut album last year, which the New York artist is bringing to venues around the UK this summer.
The loud-quiet excavations that comprise the 26-year-old Sabrina Teitelbaum’s debut as Blondshell don’t just stare traumas in the eye – they tear them at the root and shake them, bringing precise detail to colossal feelings. Containing the epiphanies of therapy sessions more than pop sessions (though the hooks are mighty), the album sees Teitelbaum’s dig her way towards confidence, self-possession, and relief in real time, every song becoming a keyhole to a bigger truth.
The self-enquiring but surprisingly fun coming-of-age album is powered by brilliant, crystalline melodies which bring a sense of hope to songs about self-destruction, bad relationships and fantasied revenge. On the chugging ‘Sepsis’, she sings about getting saved “not by Jesus but by validation in some dude’s gaze”, before a Pixies-style handbreak turn towards a huge, anthemic chorus, in which she admits: “It should take a whole lot less to turn me off”.
More addictively good melodies come in the blissed-out ‘Kiss City’, which brings something more dreamy and spacious, while ‘Olympus’ hits Cobain-level disaffection, detailing a bleak, drug-fuelled romance from which Blondshell knows she must escape in order to escape alive.
‘Salad’, perhaps the highlight, sees Blondshell experiment with darker shades, and they really work. Leaning into Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads, it’s a revenge fantasy in which the songwriter dispatches a man who assaulted her friend, following real-life justice falling flat. It’s the darkest and most powerful song on the album, and yet still has the requisite massive chorus that sticks in your head for days. If this is a hint of where she’s headed with album number two, count us in. Maybe we’ll get a taste at Band on the Wall on 1 July.
