More about: Blondshell

Blondshell rocks. That’s pretty much the review. I could end it there honestly. What? You want more details. Ok that’s cool I guess. 

New York’s Blondshell, otherwise known as Sabrina Teitelbaum, has a sound that invokes that trendy 90’s alt-rock inspired sound while still imbuing enough of her own personality into the music that it doesn't come across as a cliché. That’s pretty hard to do honestly. It’s one thing to mimic a sound that’s been done a thousand times, it’s another to make it your own. Think artists like Soccer Mommy or Supercrush, doing their own thing while still wearing their influences on their sleeve.  Blondshell’s self-titled debut passes that test with flying colours. Take the opening track, ‘Veronica Mars’; palm-muted guitar intro leading into a cathartic outro full of guitar squeals and heavy chords.  All the while, Sabrina’s personal lyrics and expressive vocals shine through. The following track, ‘Kiss City’ switches things up with a jazzy, beach ready instrumental before dropping into more alt-rock goodness. And it rocks. Did I mention that?  

I belabour the point because for some reason that seems to be kind of rare these days. A lot of Rock and Roll forgets to rock and just kind of rolls. 5-minute ballads of no substance seem to be the in thing. Blondshell almost fall into this trap with ‘Olympus’ but those shoegazey guitars are to die for.  Magnifique. Compliments to the chef and all that. Flourishes like that stop the majority of tracks on this debut from becoming alt-rock white noise. With Blondshell, you’ll get a hook, an inventive guitar line, something to hold on to. The fake-out in ‘Salad’, the explosive chorus to ‘Sepsis’.

I could spend the rest of this review just listing examples, so I’ll just state a simple fact instead. Blondshell rocks. May she rock on forever more.

Grab your copy of the Gigwise print magazine here.

More about: Blondshell