Blondshell – Fur Elise
On September 25, Blondshell (Sabrina Teitelbaum) will release her new album Violins via Partisan Records.
The album finds her trading the veil of bad romantic relationships for something braver, asking how we balance the world’s violence with its beauty across eleven songs about troubled friendships, religion, the body, and the long, unglamorous work of healing.
Today, Blondshell shares the album’s closing track “Fur Elise”.
An epic capstone, the track pairs Teitelbaum’s signature loud/quiet sonic structure with the most emotionally complex and resonant songwriting she’s ever recorded. Built around crunchy rhythmic guitars, warm low-end, and dense melodic arrangements that bloom into something panoramic, the song feels like the penultimate scene of a coming-of-age film.
Behind virtuosic hooks and Sabrina’s tactful, powerhouse alto, “Fur Elise” narrates the complexities of growing up without knowing exactly how. The song turns on a central metaphor: walking down the aisle to the simple classical piano piece “Fur Elise,” fully aware that no one would actually get married to it. The mismatch is the point. She explains: “You’re trying to figure out what you want your life to look like, and what you want playing at your wedding, but you don’t even know where to start. You’re picking the wrong song.”
Growth, self-possession, and the ongoing process of healing might seem to another person like “watching paint dry,” as she sings on Violins’ opening title track, but on “Fur Elise” she circles back around with a statement-of-self on her own terms: “Paint a wall with the things you want spoken out loud / And you get the choice to forget / And you render art / And the truth of it is separate.”
Blondshell previously shared Violins’ “Heart Has To Work So Hard” and the album’s title track.
Produced by Yves Rothman, mixed by Beatriz Artola, and mastered by Emily Lazar, Violins is an album of grandeur, drama, and tragedy, built on virtuoso hooks, swelling guitars, and big lead lines. Telling lyrical nods to Leonard Cohen and Pavement sit alongside fresh influences – Gang of Four and Teenage Fanclub’s singular tones, The Go-Betweens’ indie-pop precision, Sade’s calming synths. Violins carries you like a wave.
“This record’s heavy in a way,” Teitelbaum says, though her songwriting breathes anew.
“It’s gotten a little bit less literal,” she says. “There’s more imagery. But my main goal with this record was to have songs that hit hard. I wanted big lead lines.” Three albums on, Teitelbaum’s working relationship with Rothman has fully locked in – fleshing out the demos of songs Teitelbaum wrote on her own, then recording live with the band. “I felt like I wasn’t walking in the dark anymore,” Teitelbaum said of her increasing studio fluency. “I spend more time with Yves than almost anybody – we just have such an efficient working relationship.”
A mind-body tension flows through Violins. Teitelbaum writes about the body with her characteristically clever finesse using food metaphors and singing bluntly about periods to underscore how the body and mind are inseparable. The album also finds her invoking the spiritual as she explores a personal relationship with a higher power not through organized religion but in the makeup of one’s earthly life.
Blondshell Tour Dates 2026 + 2027
8/27 – Ascension Saint Thomas Landing at Nashville Yards – Nashville, TN *free show*
12/06 – Melkweg – Amsterdam, NL #
12/07 – Metropol – Berlin, DE #
12/08 – Ancienne Belgique – Brussels, BE #
12/10 – La Gaité Lyrique – Paris, FR #
12/12 – O2 Ritz – Manchester, UK #
12/13 – The Old Fruitmarket – Glasgow, UK #
12/15 – Roundhouse – London, EN #
12/17 – The Academy – Dublin, IE *
2/28 – The Observatory North Park – San Diego, CA
3/2 – The Wiltern – Los Angeles, CA
3/3 – The Castro Theatre – San Francisco, CA
3/5 – Crystal Ballroom – Portland, OR
3/7 – Showbox SoDo – Seattle, WA
3/11 – Varsity Theater – Minneapolis, MN
3/12 – The Vic Theatre – Chicago, IL
3/14 – Union Transfer – Philadelphia, PA
3/15 – 9:30 Club – Washington, DC
3/18 – House of Blues – Boston, MA
3/19 – Beanfield Theatre – Montreal, QC
3/20 – Danforth Music Hall – Toronto, ON
3/22 – Brooklyn Steel – Brooklyn, NY
# – With TTSSFU
! – With Theatre
#blondshell