Blondshell announces third album ‘Violins’ out September 25 via Partisan Records, sharing the title track and a dream-like video directed by Sabra Binder
Blondshell announced Violins, her third studio album, on June 25, 2026, with a release date of September 25 via Partisan Records. The announcement arrives alongside the album’s title track, now streaming, and a dream-like music video directed by Sabra Binder, whose credits include Suki Waterhouse and Willow. Produced by Yves Rothman, mixed by Beatriz Artola, and mastered by Emily Laza, the 11-track LP follows If You Asked For A Picture, the 2025 album that earned a Pitchfork score of 76 and confirmed Sabrina Teitelbaum as one of the more compelling songwriters working in contemporary alt-rock.
The critical context around Violins matters. Pitchfork’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine described If You Asked For A Picture as Teitelbaum interrogating “mid-20s heartache and complex family relationships with bluntness and guarded optimism.” Paste Magazine called it “the work of a musician who has found her voice as a singer, and also as a writer who demonstrates a knack for honesty and a touch of wit.” Album of the Year aggregated it at a strong 76. That is the reception Violins inherits, and the pressure Teitelbaum has been working against. The statement she makes about the new record suggests she has found a way through it.
What Teitelbaum Said About ‘Violins’ and the Title Track
“I felt like I didn’t need to over-explain anything, like I can trust the people listening more,” Teitelbaum says in a press note. “It feels like every time I make a record, I get closer to making the thing that I really want to make.” That is a short statement that carries real weight. It implies a deliberate restraint in how the album’s lyrical content operates, a move away from the confessional density of the first two albums toward something that leaves more room for the listener to finish the thought.
The title track itself is already online and supports the claim. Blondshell describes “Violins” as a fulcrum for the whole album, and her description of the writing process makes clear what she is working toward: “When I was writing I felt really drawn to images of patience and kindness, for example putting your head on someone’s shoulder, alongside images of violence.
I was also inspired by the idea of healing slowly and refusing to be rushed by any outside force. Things genuinely just take the time they take. I’m not at a point in life where I can have a no assholes policy yet, but I like the idea of weeding out people that aren’t going to let me have limitations.” That is not a vague thematic gesture. It is a specific emotional position, arrived at from a specific experience, rendered in Teitelbaum’s characteristic combination of flat-affect delivery and precise imagery.
The Production Team, the Sound, and the Wider Moment
Yves Rothman’s involvement as producer is the continuity point between If You Asked For A Picture and Violins that will interest listeners paying close attention. His production on the second album drew comparisons from multiple reviewers to the murky guitar tones of Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, and Queens of the Stone Age.
The choice to retain that collaboration suggests Teitelbaum is not pivoting sonically so much as refining and extending the aesthetic she has been developing since her 2023 debut. The press note’s description of the title track as mirroring “the patience of her first record but with a broader grasp of quite-loud dynamics” points in the same direction.
Blondshell operates in a specific lane in contemporary rock. She is not the only artist working in 90s-influenced alt-rock right now, but she is one of the few doing it with enough lyrical specificity and emotional intelligence that the influence reads as absorption rather than pastiche. Violins, if the title track is any indication, is built on the same foundation. September 25 is the date that matters.
