Blondshell - If You Asked For A Picture (Album Review)
Friday, 09 May 2025
Written by Sarah Taylor
Photo: Daniel Topete
On ‘If You Asked For a Picture’, Blondshell’s Sabrina Teitelbaum assembles a scrapbook of the significant moments that have shaped her in an attempt to give form to the album’s title. Duly, its songs encompass painful memories of past romantic relationships, fraught family bonds, and a confrontation with her own inner critic. But, like the Mary Oliver poem that inspired its name, there is also room to contemplate the extent to which she should share parts of her life through her music.
All that amounts to Teitelbaum’s strongest work to date, capturing the intensity of the Gen Z experience through her vivid, unfiltered lyrics and self-effacing humour while deploying layered harmonies and soaring indie-rock instrumentals. This dynamic is best exemplified on 23’s A Baby, where she laments her own naivety in a culture that tells us we should all have it figured out by now.
The record is sonically tidy, unlike its raw and candid commentary as Teitelbaum grapples with body image (“I won't lose my body if I get a belly”), addiction (“If you stopped drinking, maybe I could find you attractive”), and depression (“What picks it up isn’t desire, it’s a lack of Sertraline”).
These barbed lines unfurl across a textured stream of grungy guitars, with Teitelbaum’s vocals breezy and sometimes deadpan, harking back to ‘90s icons Courtney Love and Liz Phair, a past touring partner of Teitelbaum’s.
On the standout track Event of a Fire she’s angry with past partners whom she felt the need to change herself for: “Part of me is still getting all of my haircuts for someone else.” In contrast, on Two Times she blames herself for the dissolution of a relationship: “What the hell is wrong with my head? / Sometimes it feels like you’re not enough / ‘Cause you’re not self centred.”
On her second outing, Blondshell has fine-tuned her diaristic songwriting and tight melodies to craft a set of songs that will resonate with her peers now more than ever.
Blondshell Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Tue September 02 2025 - DUBLIN Button Factory
Thu September 04 2025 - MANCHESTER New Century Hall
Sat September 06 2025 - GLASGOW QMU
Sun September 07 2025 - LEEDS Brudenell Social Club
Mon September 08 2025 - BRISTOL SWX
Wed September 10 2025 - BRIGHTON Chalk
Thu September 11 2025 - LONDON Electric Brixton
Fri September 12 2025 - LONDON Electric Brixton
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