Blondshell

Born in New York in 1997 and currently based in Los Angeles, Sabrina Mae Teitelbaum began her artistic career under the alias BAUM, releasing a handful of singles and a self-produced EP, “Ungodly” (March 2018). The largely alt-pop direction she pursued didn't fully satisfy the young songwriter, who, encouraged by producer Yves Rothman (Yves Tumor, Girlpool), decided on a second start, this time under the name Blondshell.
On her first, self-titled album, released on Partisan Records in 2023, Blondshell put on record her struggles with alcohol and drug dependency and the bad relationships she had gone through, searching for the perfect sound for each song and carving out a space for herself between indie-rock and alt-pop. Yet another singer-songwriter-with-a-guitar who nonetheless proves she has what it takes to stand out. Critics and audiences alike applauded.
Two years later came her second album, “If You Asked For A Picture“, which confirmed her international standing. The first things to hit the mark are the jagged, rounded alt-rock shapes of “T&A” and “23’s a Baby”, which reveal Blondshell's more energetic, Nineties-leaning side. Guitars are also very much present on tracks like “What’s Fair”, “Toy” and “He Wants Me”, but the American songwriter places her most astonishing moments right in the middle of the record, when “Event Of A Fire” builds through an emotional crescendo that condenses the anguish voiced by Ethel Cain on “Preacher’s Daughter” with the vocal presence of Dolores O'Riordan, the latter a constant reference point throughout much of the record. All of this laid over a musical fabric driven by guitars reminiscent of U2, for a soft-rock sound that ideally merges the United States and Ireland. Even more surprising is what happens on the preceding track, “Two Times”, where Sabrina alternates verses sung – once again – in Cranberries mode with choruses heavily inspired by the style of Taylor Swift, so much so that it almost feels like a surprise feature, with gripping results.
Blondshell therefore draws on very popular reference points, with no fear of showing them off, filtered through years and years of compulsive listening. She then plays her cards to arrive at a result that remains personal, where the main themes dealt with concern the difficulties of romantic and interpersonal relationships, her relationship with her own body, the complex and formative reckoning with her mother, who passed away in 2018, and her struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder and alcohol dependency. The result is a genuinely honest record, at times aching, yet radio-friendly in sound. Amid grungy guitars, pristine melodies and tales of dysfunction, she passes the test brilliantly, like an excellent student who has managed to gather a wealth of influences to build her own musical world, and hand it over to all of us.
Thanks to her growing success, Blondshell has become a fixture at many of the world's major music festivals, including, notably, a prestigious double-weekend appearance at Coachella 2026.
In September of that same year came Violins, Blondshell's third album, which opens and closes with its three most striking moments, not by chance chosen as the lead singles. The guitars remain very present, and Sabrina's voice continues to bring to mind the never-forgotten Dolores O’Riordan. “Violins” and “Heart Has To Work So Hard” are two excellent ways to open a record with real energy, with choruses charged with electricity, just as the evocative, intensely melodramatic “Fur Elisa” is the most emotional possible closer. In between, more electrically propulsive tracks (“Lucky”, “Stone Fruit”, “Two Fried”) alternate with others that settle into a delicate autumnal mood (“Sea Legs”, “New Shape”, “Knotted”), closer to the style of Phoebe Bridgers. In her lyrics, Blondshell often aims sharp invectives at the people who have let her down — a lover, a friend, her peers, even humanity as a whole — or at herself, an anger at times smoothed over by introspective moments of truce. Hers seems to be a search for authentic bonds, unfolding between rough guitars and refined piano parts. “New Age Trojan Horse” delivers one of the album's best grooves, while “Reinstall” turns out to be its most dramatic chapter: emotional highs and lows that represent the outcome of Blondshell's artistic evolution, focused — now more than ever — on searching for the real meaning of the word “happiness”.