ALBUM REVIEW: Blondshell - If You Asked For a Picture

Translating the trials and tribulations of being a twenty-something into a sonic scrapbook of fluttering lo-fi melodies is no mean feat. For Sabrina Teitelbaum on the other hand, it feels like second nature. Her sophomore album as the alt-rock inspired dream girl Blondshell serves as a love letter to introspective fog, clouded daydreams, and the weight of souring relationships; encompassed by an air of sensibility, but oozing with vulnerability.

‘If You Asked For a Picture’ would comfortably provide the soundtrack to a coming-of-age flick and not sound a single note out of place. Lyrically, the album floats through tales of lived experiences with gentle vigour, throwing hard-hitting stories into each corner of a well-rounded soundscape that extracts everything you know and love about the fuzz of the 1990s and spins it on its head. 

Opening track ‘Thumbtack’ crafts an instrumental mise-en-scene that sits somewhere between the acoustic efforts of a Pop Punk outfit, and the glimmering sonics of a wind-in-your-hair chronicler akin to Samia or Lucy Dacus. 

The same energy is channelled as Sabrina Teitelbaum transcends through ‘Two Times’ and ‘What’s Fair’. Her somewhat leisurely, stream of consciousness approach to vocally adorning the tracks feels oh-so personal. 

‘23s A Baby’ encompasses an almost spoken-word style that yearns to be mulled over, propelled by lashings of piano that ebb and flow between the cracks of the singer-songwriter’s mind. The grunginess reaches no climax, but instead leaks into tracks like ‘Toy’. It boasts a sense of painful angst and unfinished conversations which is infused into a guitar stint slightly reminiscent of The Cure’s early days.

Sabrina Teitelbaum closes out ‘If You Asked For a Picture’ with an effervescent piano ballad that toes the line between gut wrenching poetry and drifting dream pop. ‘Model Rockets’ stands out as a reflective expression of an incomplete journey into self-discovery; a deceivingly candid track that concludes an album that falls nothing short of beautiful.