The relationship revenge fantasy is big business in pop this year. Miley Cyrus’s Flowers, a better-off-alone shrug at her ex-husband, is a global No 1; Shakira went viral annihilating her allegedly cheating ex; Lana Del Rey posted the sole billboard for her new album in her former boyfriend’s home town; SZA’s Kill Bill murdered her ex and his new girlfriend. Salad, from Sabrina Teitelbaum’s debut album as Blondshell, is hellbent on a different kind of vengeance. Set to wig-blowing goth-rock somewhere between the Cranberries’ angst and Depeche Mode’s shiny edges, it finds the 25-year-old songwriter imagining dispatching a man who transgressed against her friend. “God tell me why did he hurt my girl?” she sings as guitars thunder.
It’s the most overtly furious moment on an album that otherwise deals with subtler shades of rage as she turns over the complex relationship dynamics that can condition women to tolerate mistreatment. Teitelbaum previously performed as Baum, writing disaffected, feminist-slogan-T-shirt alt-pop that already seems dated. She has since said it never felt like her and that getting sober in 2019, followed by lockdown, pushed her to write the angry music she had always been scared to make, inspired by Hole and PJ Harvey. (A cynic could call it a savvy move – although Teitelbaum’s bloodletting has been celebrated as exceptional, the fact is that angsty young women have dominated alternative music in recent years, culminating in Boygenius signing to a major.) On Blondshell, a torrid but surprisingly fun coming-of-age album, Teitelbaum is still close enough to access the contrary emotions behind that strength of feeling, but it’s the sort of smart, vivid record that only comes from having enough distance to establish patterns of behaviour.
One constant is a destructive desire for sensation, whether from narcotics, sex or hollow validation. “I think I’m losing myself,” Teitelbaum admits on Tarmac, frustration fraying her voice as the chorus heaves with spite: “I’m in love with a feeling / Not with anyone or any real thing.” Blondshell, at any rate, transmutes that craving into enormously satisfying poppy alt-rock (produced by Yves Rothman) that freshens up well-worn influences. Teitelbaum is a fan of a Pixies-style loud-quiet-loud blast, Nirvana’s dank guitar tone, Liz Phair’s feckless delight. But she has a distinct facility for hooky melodies – often euphoric even when she’s singing about something dismal – and nuanced vocals, qualities that give her debut huge live potential. She slides from sarcastic to hangdog to hard-edged, the last a tell-tale sign of self-laceration: “Just look me in the eye when I’m about to finish … I think my kink is when you tell me that I’m pretty,” she sings with a trace of disgust at her neediness on the otherwise blissed-out Kiss City, one of a few dreamier songs that bring spaciousness and scope to this compact, nine-track album.
Coming back to Del Rey, it’s 11 years since she released her debut, which germinated her longstanding theme as someone frequently in thrall to unpleasant men. Unsurprisingly, this landed poorly during the empowerment feminism era, though fans recognised the complex truth behind her words. So did a subsequent generation of therapised young songwriters, Teitelbaum among them, keen to figure out the roots of these warped attractions. Blondshell starts with Veronica Mars, named after the 00s US series about a teenage private investigator. It’s a vignette from a childhood spent watching age-inappropriate shows: taut palm-muted chords anchor Teitelbaum’s digressive verses, as if following the logic of a child cobbling together a worldview, and crest in a playful, ripping chorus. “Logan’s a dick,” she sings of Mars’s nemesis-slash-love interest. Then comes a quick see-saw of reactions: “I’m learning that’s hot / Gimme shelter,” she begs, the latter pointedly not a Rolling Stones reference but a plea for her just-lost innocence.
It’s the seed of a vine that only grows more tangled with age. Blondshell nails the fine line between devotion and delusion in self-destructive relationships. “What if I’m down to let this kill me?” she sings on Sepsis, slumped verses about loving some prick giving way to a thrashing, yelled chorus: “It should take a whole lot less to turn me off.” She conflates love and addiction in a grim mutter on Olympus, a song that descends into Cobain-worthy disaffection: “Hate myself ’cos I always black out,” she sings, deepening her voice to hollow the final words. (Meanwhile, she gets the common contradiction of embracing oblivion while wanting better for loved ones, offering tough love to a relapsed friend on the sweet, disco ball-hazy Sober Together.)
Substance use and insecurity only add to this precariousness. The final two songs, Tarmac and the spare, celestial Dangerous, find Teitelbaum changing and overindulging to impress fickle new party friends, fully aware of the consequences. She sounds weak at the conclusion of the latter, singing in a defeated run-on about wanting escape but fearing being ditched, craving the “emotional vacation” of alcohol. “I don’t know moderation,” Teitelbaum sings. “I just know enough to know that I don’t know a thing and I want someone to take the blame.” It gets at the futility of the revenge fantasy as no substitute for healing. But Blondshell, rich with bitter experience and untrammelled honesty, offers a robust shelter where listeners might start to find it.
This week Laura listened to
Álex Anwandter – Maricoteca
Anwandter is a pioneering Chilean pop star whose sharp, glamorous synth-pop evokes the highs of Phoenix. Marioteca is funky, breezy, but intriguingly tortured.
• Alexis Petridis is away
