**Sabrina Teitelbaum's Sonic Evolution with Blondshell**
I meet Sabrina Teitelbaum on a crisp London day, her new vintage Yohji Yamamoto trench coat a stylish statement. "All the girlies are on the Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy grind now," she remarks, "so we have to work a bit harder to get the good stuff." Indeed, this sleek, inky jacket is the good stuff. Teitelbaum is weeks away from releasing her third album as Blondshell, Violins, and change is on her mind.
Sabrina Teitelbaum's Sonic Evolution with Blondshell
Since her 2023 debut and 2025's If You Asked for a Picture, Teitelbaum has preferred to work quickly, releasing music that reflects her current self. "I feel like each year things change so much and that makes me feel like a bit of a different artist every time that happens," the 29-year-old says. Most of Violins was written while touring, with longtime producer Yves Rothman in the studio in Los Angeles by April. The result is 11 songs that feel grander, sharper, and more sonically expansive than ever.
Guitars are drier and more angular this time around, drawing from influences like Gang of Four, Suede, and The Replacements. Leonard Cohen's lyrics also serve as a lyrical lodestar, as seen in "Two Fried." Yet when asked about the album's themes, Teitelbaum resists easy categorization. She doesn't start with theses or messages; instead, songs emerge from knotty subjects she can't discuss elsewhere. "I write about things that are difficult for me to talk about in my everyday life," she explains. "This is sort of my place to talk about those things and I write about things that are painful to me.All of my favorite songs are painful."
Violins indeed explores pain, beauty, sex, complicated friendships, faith, and the moral dissonance of living in a world where extraordinary violence arrives through our screens. This dissonance inspired "Lucky," one of the first songs Teitelbaum wrote after arriving in Dublin before a tour. "There was this weird feeling of being in a really beautiful city, but also knowing that there was all this terrible stuff happening elsewhere," she reflects. "I wanted to capture that feeling of being both lucky and cursed at the same time."