Sometimes albums are most impactful when they embrace their imperfections, and Blondshell’s sophomore effort, If You Asked For A Picture, is one of them. Across 45 minutes of grungy, tangled honesty, Sabrina Teitelbaum, otherwise known as Blondshell, doubles down on the raw emotion and flawed beauty that defined her debut.
If You Asked For A Picture places Blondshell in a chaotic realm of introspection and regret. Her second studio album carries over many themes of her self-titled debut album which showcased Teitelbaum’s struggles of maturity and seeming impossibility of smart decision making.
The opening track ‘Thumbtack’, and one of the standouts on the record ‘He Wants Me’, act as microcosms for Teitelbaum’s struggles in love and show that rather than outgrowing the regrets of her debut, Teitelbaum opens this album by sinking deeper into them.
The stripped back acoustic folk style at the beginning of the track elicits clarity and a sense that there is a lesson to be had from the song, yet before long, the drums invade the track and almost drown out the vocal delivery and making it intelligible. On the chorus of ‘Thumbtack’ Blondshell sings: “You’re a thumbtack in my side / a dog bite / you distract / from what’s worse,” confronting herself with the fact it feels easier to stay with a toxic love than to find yourself with unfamiliar loneliness.
Throughout the rest of the album, Teitelbaum finds herself constantly reflecting on past traumas, alluding to her struggles with anorexia and the loss of her mother in 2018 on the track ‘Event of a Fire’. At times, she even questions her worthiness of happiness — especially on the track ‘Two Times’ which ponders the idea of a relationship needing struggles to be meaningful. In an attempt to validate her feelings, she questions: “How bad does it have to hurt to count?”
While her lyrics express a resistance to progress, the album’s instrumentation and production, courtesy of Yves Rothman, suggests an artist evolving.
While her debut album felt at times like it was holding back, If You Asked For A Picture feels like a fully cohesive and fleshed out album with drums and guitars that echo Teitelbaum’s internal struggles as if they were weeping with her.
Further, Teitelbaum’s voice, while distinctly Californian, channels the emotional rawness of The Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan and the sharp clarity of Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell, hanging onto each word with an emotionally raw cry, especially with her ethereal backing vocals.
However, much like The Cranberries or Wolf Alice, Blondshell’s voice can sometimes feel lost within the often oversaturated production, forcing her to fight to be heard sometimes. Although this works on the likes of ‘Changes’ where her struggle to be heard results in a deadpan and grungy delivery, the oversaturation for most part takes away from Blondshell’s sardonic emotion.
Blondshell’s compelling vocal versatility is the obvious strength of the record, crooning from struggle to struggle with her clever lyrics. Despite occasionally burying her vocals beneath dense production, Rothman’s work mostly amplifies the emotional core of the record.
Overall, the record has made its mark on Blondshell’s wider discography, building on the singer’s debut in an intentionally imperfect and grungy manner while situating her sound closely to the ‘90s alt-rock and punk genres.
Words by Aaron Edwards
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