Blondshell's 'Violins' Is the Sound of a Songwriter Who Stopped Apologizing for the Volume
Three albums in, Blondshell has stopped treating a big rock arrangement as something to earn. Violins opens on its own title track and never really apologizes after that.
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: The bass chair is the tell. Anna Butterss plays both bass and double bass across the record, and Pierre Simon and Joe Kennedy fill in around her on baritone guitar, Mellotron and Wurlitzer — which means the bottom of these songs is frequently two or three different instruments agreeing rather than one DI’d line holding everything down. Yves Rothman produced and also turns up in the credits on drum machine and effects, so the programmed and played elements were never separate departments.
The Spatial Dynamics: Beatriz Artola mixed and Emily Lazar mastered, and the pair keep a genuinely loud record legible. Clash, giving it 9/10, put the gain where it belongs: “The visceral ‘Stone Fruit’ is a prime example. Loaded with tactile imagery, crashing buzzsaw guitars, and Teitelbaum’s stacked harmonies.” Paste heard the same discipline from the other side — “It’s an expertly crafted record, atmospheric and encompassing, with the singer’s sharpest production to date.”
Standout Performance
Teitelbaum’s own writing hand, and specifically what she does with a line now. NME’s Ali Shutler named it exactly: “There’s a liberated freedom to Teitelbaum’s storytelling here: less diary confessional, more conversational poetry.” Samia Finnerty shows up as a co-writer, and Sam Stewart plays guitar and writes too — this is a record built by a room, not a diary set to music.
Why It’s Certified
Because the praise is broad and it agrees with itself. Under the Radar, 90: “Teitelbaum sounds willing to push herself in new directions, offering further evidence that she’s one of the most interesting and emotionally intelligent artists to emerge in recent years.” The Line of Best Fit: “It’s in her ability to take the everyday experience and turn it into an epic noise that Violins finds its sweet spot.” Clash again, on the arc across three albums: “Everything great about Blondshell is present on ‘Violins’, but it feels sharper, more adventurous and more assured.”
Closer “Fur Elise” is the longest thing here. It earns it.