★★★½

The third LP from LA’s Blondshell maintains her familiar blend of confronting lyricism and catchy alt-rock.

Sabrina Teitelbaum nailed down her formula a while back. After some forays into the mainstream pop world as BAUM, she diverted a few years back and ventured into the indie-rock/alternative scene with her ‘90s styled breakout single Olympus. As far as the thematics went, there wasn’t much room for misinterpretation; it’s typically angsty alt-rock lamenting toxic relationships and immature men. And yes, there’s a fairly evergreen market for this style of in your face girl with guitar stuff, as 2023’s titular debut showcased.

Cynicism aside, it was an impressive first outing which held together based on the catchy structural arrangement of songs which altogether sound like some kind of effective ‘90s tribute, impressively synthesising influences from the likes of PJ Harvey to the Smashing Pumpkins. There’s also a reasonable debt to the OG grunge scene, as both the Nirvana and Hole influence were a prominent feature on an album which was very well received for its straightforward consumability.

Her second outing was a natural progression of this sound, retaining the vulnerable, self-critical lyrical honesty which seems a surefire way to avoid most accusations of genre-pastiching. Again, a well received end product which works based on the catchiness of the music and ‘00s Avril Lavigne sheen which began to creep into the overarching thematics of self-doubt issues and perpetually irritating men. Even if the lyricism was grappling with some less than nuanced existential issues, the confidence of the musical counterpart kept it from being anything but a highly listenable nostalgia trip to the good ‘ol days of alternative rock.

So with her third outing, why change a formula that isn’t broken? Three albums in three years is pretty productive from an output perspective, and navigating your twenties offers more than enough emotional ammunition to compile a small arsenal of tunes which muse on these changing social dynamics and identity evolution. The major departure on this album (if you can call it that) is a shift towards a more abstract, introspective lyricism which deals less directly with the same issues of complex relationships and lamentations of dreadful decisions from the past. Musically, it’s the same catchy Blondshell formula we’ve heard before.

But at what point does it start to feel as though we’re stuck in an alt-rock time loop? There’s a multiverse of music out there which sounds vaguely like Blondshell, but yet it seems to maintain its efficacy for the most part because for a lot of us, it’s derivative of a sound which is a comforting time capsule; reminding us of those days spent watching the MTV channel and discovering music independently for the first time. It’s a bit of a fine line, as there are moments on Violins which do seem to blur the gaps between obvious differentiation; the mid-section suffers a bit from a lack of stylistic deviation into something unexplored and therefore, interesting.

But, there’s space for standout tracks like the titular opener and Heart Has To Work So Hard to pay homage to the dreamier side of ‘90s grunge a la Siamese Dream. Stone Fruit maintains the alt-rock edge but feels closer to a Superheaven style revival track than a direct homage. Closing track Fur Elise is more indebted to the contemporary atmospheric styles of Phoebe Bridgers, but works as a denouement to another album which even if it’s not racing forwards into uncharted territories, works because of its genre tendencies to swing wildly and still land its punches across generations. Any other genre might have seen fans and critics alike yawning at the lack of obvious progression, but alt-rock is surprisingly fortified from such rapid disregard. Let’s see how long it lasts for.