Blondshell (Sabrina Teitelbaum) released her eagerly awaited sophomore album, ‘If You Asked For a Picture’, on 2nd May via Partisan Records and has now shared the final pre-release track, “Event of a Fire”.
It’s Blondshell at her most cinematic, both sonically and emotionally, offering a slow-burning epic that starts in a hush and ends in a howl. Written in the haze of tour-life burnout and sparked by a real 4 a.m. hotel fire evacuation outside Boston, the song begins with a lone guitar arpeggio, intimate and unguarded, before piercing vocal harmonies flicker in and the whole thing ignites.
“It’s not really ‘what if I’m burnt out from touring,’” Teitelbaum says. “It’s like, ‘what if I’m burnt out from just existing?’”That existential fatigue builds into one of the most anthemic moments on the album, all crashing drums and towering distortion, as she threads together body image, family tension, and the psychic weight of just trying to hold it together. It’s a confessional torch song for the end of your rope. Listen to “Event of a Fire” HERE.
The song’s video stars up-and-coming French actress Ghjuvanna Benedetti and was directed by Emilé Moutaud. The video takes us into the day of a diving team and the internal burnout of one of the divers. It captures the moment when the ordinary aspects of her life clash with the weight of what she’s feeling inside.
WATCH VIDEO FOR ‘EVENT OF A FIRE’
Today’s single follows the metaphorical beating heart of the album “23’s A Baby”, the stripped-back introspection of “Two Times” and the album’s crushingly catchy “T&A” which Blondshell played on Jimmy Kimmel Live! - watch the performance HERE.
‘If You Asked For A Picture’ sees Teitelbaum once again teaming up with producer Yves Rothman to craft a collection as potent and emotionally charged as her acclaimed 2023 debut. The upcoming album brims with an urgency, ambition, and devastating potency hinted at on Blondshell’s 2023 self-titled debut, the specificity, self-examination, and nonchalant humor of which turned her into one of the most lauded new artists in recent memory. Pre-order ‘If You Asked For A Picture’ HERE.
LISTEN/WATCH CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED SINGLES FROM ‘IF YOU ASKED FOR A PICTURE’ “23'S A BABY”, “TWO TIMES”, “T&A” & “WHAT’S FAIR”
Blondshell will celebrate the release of ‘If You Asked For A Picture’ with a sold out underplay on Friday 2nd May at Los Angeles’s Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, complete with freebies including stick & poke tattoos, a photo booth, and more.
On 28th May Blondshell will hit the road for her world-wide headline run. The tour includes a UK + European leg in September, featuring a sold-out night at London’s Electric Brixton, with a second on sale now. Ahead of this, she is set to support Fontaines DC at London’s Finsbury Park on 5th July and will embark on her US headline run, which includes sold-out shows at The 9:30 Club in DC and Brooklyn Steel in Brooklyn, NY. For tickets and more information please visit https://www.blondshellmusic.com/tour
‘If You Asked For A Picture’ tracklisting
Thumbtack
Arms
Change
Toy
He Wants Me
Man
Model Rockets
‘If You Asked For A Picture’ borrows its title from a 1986 poem by the cherished American writer Mary Oliver, titled “Dogfish.” In it, Oliver grapples with the idea of telling one’s own story: how much to share, how much to keep for oneself — all questions Teitelbaum asked herself while writing the forthcoming LP. “There’s a part of the poem that says: ‘I don’t need to tell you everything I’ve been through. It’s just another story of somebody trying to survive,’” Teitelbaum says. “Something I love about songs is that you’re showing a snapshot of a person or a relationship, and showing a glimpse into a story can be just as important as trying to capture the entire thing. Sometimes it’s even truer to the entire picture than if you tried to write everything down.”
In the studio, Teitelbaum found herself confident and at home like never before, trusting her instincts as she developed an almost telekinetic shorthand with producer Yves Rothman. The result is a record of astounding sonic range – including sky-scraping ballads and colossal hooks that soar over waves of distortion, mixing layered textures and harmonic flourishes, or making unexpected hairpin turns between them. Primary among her production touchstones were unexpected curveballs like Queens of the Stone Age’s ‘Rated R’ and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Californication’. Teitelbaum reveled in appropriating those hyper-masculine aesthetics for her uncompromising examinations of young womanhood, playing with performances of gender in rock. “It’s empowering for me to use sonic references that feel reserved for men,” she explains..
In the time since ‘Blondshell’, the image of Teitelbaum’s life has changed considerably. As the accolades accrued she spent more time on the road than at home. This rootlessness naturally impacted Teitelbaum’s relationships with others and with herself. “When you travel a lot, you see different possibilities for who you can be,” Teitelbaum says. “So there were a lot more questions coming up. What do I want my life to look like? Maybe it’s just the nature of being two years older, but I’m more comfortable with nuance now, and I’m more comfortable with gray areas.” There’s an open-endedness to where ‘If You Asked For A Picture’ lands: it’s a no-skips, triumphant sophomore record that captures the unresolved process of figuring out who you are, too wise to suggest that it has a definitive answer.
EU/UK TOUR DATES
7/5/25 - London, UK @ Finsbury Park @
7/10/25 - Madrid, ES @ MadCool Festival
7/12/25 - Trancin, SK @ Pohoda Festival
7/13/25 - Vienna, AT @ Wiener Stadthalle &
9/2/25 - Dublin, IE @ Button Factory + (Venue Upgrade)
9/4/25 - Manchester, UK @ New Century +
9/6/25 - Glasgow, UK @ QMU + (Venue Upgrade)
9/7/25 - Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club +
9/8/25 - Bristol, UK @ SWX +
9/10/25 - Brighton, UK @ Chalk +
9/11/25 - London, UK @ Electric Brixton + (2nd Night Added)
9/12/25 - London, UK @ Electric Brixton + SOLD OUT
9/14/25 - Lille, FR @ L’Aéronef#
9/15/25 - Paris, FR @ Le Trabendo #
9/17/25 - Brussels, BE @ Botanique #
9/18/25 - Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso Tolhuistuin #
9/20/25 - Hamburg, DE @ Reeperbahn Festival
9/21/25 - Copenhagen, DK @ VEGA #
9/23/25 - Berlin, DE @ Hole44 #
9/25/25 - Cologne, DE @ Helios37 #
@ with Fontaines DC
& with Queens of the Stone Age
+ support from Westside Cowboy
# support from Francis of Delirium
For more information:
