REVIEW: The Beautiful Chaos oF Blondshell’s New Album ‘Violins’
REVIEW
REVIEW
☆ BY MEGAN EPPOLITO ☆
THE THIRD ALBUM, VIOLINS, BY SABRINA TEITELBAUM, KNOWN AS BLONDSHELL — was released on September 25. The 11-track album features symbolic lyrics, catchy tones and infectious moody-rock influences. Teitelbaum explores relationships, unhealthy friendships, religion and self-love through thematic imagery and vocal coloring. The Los Angeles-based singer uses motifs like fruit, trees, wood and fire to express her messages throughout the album. The album arrives ahead of her upcoming tour, which kicks off in February 2027.
The title track “Violins” sets the stage for the album. The catchy lyrics and drawn-out vocals encapsulate the emotions Teitelbaum sets out to emulate. The wordplay using violins in proximity to the word violent encapsulates the beauty and chaos of the relationship, which seems to be a recurring theme. “A violent game / Violins play / Your battle song sounds like spit on a stranger.” The representation of wood, the material that makes up a violin, is a symbol that can be noticed when listening to each of the tracks carefully.
“Heart Has To Work So Hard” follows as an upbeat rock sound, diving into Teitelbaum's draining, deeply entangled nature of a friendship. The title alone shows the overwhelming feeling that covers the singer when she is with the person. “I turn to face the lake / And your turn to twist the knife / You’re still my best friend / I see through all the shame / You’re still the one I love / And I think that it’s brave you choose to live, live.” The song depicts a toxic relationship where the friend is acting out towards Teitelbaum, using manipulation or sabotage due to dealing with their own personal issues. The singer still has love for this person, but while she is attached to them, she is drained and worn out by being around them. The friendship isn’t a healthy one. Instead, it is one that makes the singer suspicious, doubtful and hesitant. The chorus sings “You give me paws / You get me scaring strangers / You get me criticizing / You make this feel like labor.”
“Lucky” switches things up with piano in the intro. The song resembles ‘90s rock, with drums picking up the song after the chorus. The track tells the story of the singer’s mom, who passed away when Teitelbaum was a child. “Wear my mother’s necklace / Let it shine in the light.” The complexity of the situation was too much to explain, so she was told her mother died of cancer. “She’s alive in my memory / She said that she had cancer / The truth is too complex for a kid.”
In the fourth track, “Sea Legs,” she uses fire as a symbol and has a message of religion. “Someone’s match got struck on the inside of a cave / Praying that the praying starts to take / Driving down the road to amen / Harmony’s an argument for them.” The song talks about looking to religion for something better. The symbol of fire is present in the chorus: “And Gio is an argument / And when it starts to rain / And Leonard Cohen writing about the flame.” The Flame is a book by Cohen with poetry, lyrics and prose with major themes of morality, love, faith, spirituality and dedication to art — all themes that are present in this album.
Unhealthy friendships, a theme introduced earlier in the album, are explored again in the fifth track, “New Shape.” The song dives into the singer noticing her friend changing personas every time she sees them, to the point where she doesn’t relate to or know them anymore. The chorus sings: “You slip out beneath the thumb of my understanding / Every time I think I know you, you shift into a new shape.” Teitelbaum’s patience is running thin while hanging onto the friendship: “Begging in silence / Begging for attention, Cutting up my soles / Walking on your eggshells.”
Teitelbaum returns to the physical imagery on “Stone Fruit” using the structure of a stone fruit — outer skin, fleshy middle and hard inner pit — as an extended metaphor for emotional vulnerability. She talks about loving a person so much and wanting to know them deeply to their core: “Like a stone fruit bite til I feel you,” “I care to stick to you like a clot / wanna hear your history until you don’t want to talk / That’s love baby,” and “Biting through the center and the clothes” all represent her attachment to this other person.
She states that she is able to move through the obstacles of the relationship if there ever becomes distance between them. “If we get distant we can sift through the tall grass and through the mud.” The theme of religion and fire is prevalent in the bridge as well, with the lyrics “You walked by the church and said it tripped you out / By a cobble road where stolen art burned down / You feel ugly when you think you see their thoughts / I feel ugly when they ask I drop bombs.” Teitelbaum has talked about being Jewish in the past. The lyric refers to the political climate and how it affects her.
In “Two Fried,” a catchy ‘90s rock-inspired track deepens the message regarding the distance and its effects on the relationship. “But there’s something about the distance / Makes it easier to see / But there’s something about the distance / Like the splitting of a tree.” A tree is a recurring symbol in the album, representing something strong and sturdy but can be split, like her relationship. After taking time away from the relationship, she can feel free and reflect on her experiences. It also relates to wood, which recurs in the next track.
“New Age Trojan Horse” explores the way some men can treat women in today’s society. The Trojan horse is said to be hollow and made up of wood. A Trojan horse is a modern metaphor for a subversion that looks helpful on the outside but brings hidden dangers, a theme she used in “Stone Fruit.” She sings, “With a book and a bag, said ‘Sometimes I cry / And I only buy vinyl to keep the album alive” representing the performative sensitivity some men use to appeal to women when they have toxic characteristics and ulterior motives. This metaphor connects back to the album's title track as violin bows are made from horsehair, tying the motifs tightly together. She also brings up religion with the lyric “New religion / Cause I need a second man to talk to when my boyfriend sleeps,” furthering the theme of turning to religion when things get difficult.
In the track “Knotted,” Teitelbaum explores the emotions of being worn down by a relationship but still wanting the connection. Lyrics like “You wore me down on the outside / But I love to hold you” and "You wore me down like sandpaper” represent the draining feeling she gets by staying in the relationship. “And if I’m honest / I’m in your pocket / When you make a promise, you keep me on the hook.” She’s attached because of the influence that this person has on her- a person who is stringing her along, giving her false options while looking for other options.
“Reinstall” dives more into this relationship and the evident incompatibility. “You can’t sleep with the sound of seals / I can’t sleep without the sound at all.” There is a connection to the previous track “Knotted” with the lyric, “Tangled up when I’m in love.” “Take a break to run in the field / Drink the pulp and eat the peel,” Teitelbaum refers back to the fruit symbol with the imagery of consuming the fruit. The “Run in the field” lyric relates to the earlier song “Two Fried,” where she uses running through tall grass and mud to represent the obstacles they face.
The final track “Für Elise” closes out the album with symbols of fire and wood representing something strong, like wood can be burned down. Blondshell sings, “Hands are fireproof, wooden table / literary heroine breaking through the stable.” A wooden stable holds horses, another symbol connecting to the violin and the Trojan horse, using “horse” to represent freedom from the relationship. The lyric “you don’t know what I know, back to the tree” calls back to “Two Fried” and the splitting of the tree, symbolizing the final dissolution of the relationship. In the closing track, Teitelbaum reflects on the end and the feeling from the experience.
Violins features strong writing with themes and motifs to tell the stories of friendships and relationships and the emotions that grow from them. The sound is fresh while staying true to her signature sound. The rock, upbeat songs carry messages of deeper themes to show her emotions in the relationships. Violins is a wonderful album to dive into the meaning behind the songs or just play out loud while driving.
