Blondshell has released ‘Fur Elise’, the closing track from her forthcoming third album Violins, out September 25 via Partisan Records.
Sabrina Teitelbaum has spent much of Blondshell’s recorded life picking through relationships and their wreckage, but Violins widens the lens. Across its 11 tracks, she turns towards troubled friendships, religion, the body and the much less tidy business of figuring out who you are once the dust has settled.
‘Fur Elise’ makes a fitting final word. Built around crunchy guitars, a warm low end and Teitelbaum’s commanding alto, it uses Blondshell’s familiar quiet-loud dynamics before gradually opening into something much bigger. There’s muscle in the arrangement, but the uncertainty at the centre of the song is what makes it interesting.
Produced by Yves Rothman, Violins also includes previous singles ‘Heart Has To Work So Hard’ and the title track. Teitelbaum describes wanting songs that “hit hard” and “big lead lines”, while the album pulls inspiration from the likes of Gang of Four, Teenage Fanclub, The Go-Betweens and Sade.
It follows 2025’s If You Asked for a Picture and companion release Another Picture, as well as the self-titled 2023 debut that first put Blondshell firmly on the radar.
Australian audiences have had several opportunities to watch that rise at close quarters. Backseat Mafia caught Blondshell at Laneway Festival in 2024 and when she did a show a the Oxford Art Factory that year and again this year when Teitelbaum returned to Sydney for a headline show at the Factory Theatre as part of an east coast Australian run.
With Violins, Teitelbaum appears less interested in providing neat answers than examining what happens while you’re still looking for them. ‘Fur Elise’ understands that sometimes growing up means picking the wrong song first.
