In the past few years, 25-year-old Sabrina Teitelbaum has transformed into a songwriter without fear. The loud-quiet excavations that comprise her hook-filled debut as Blondshell dont only stare traumas in the eyethey tear them at the root and shake them, bringing precise detail to colossal feelings. Theyre clear-eyed statements of and about digging your way toward confidence, self-possession, and relief.

Sabrina shed her previous, pop-leaning project, Baum, and the process emboldened her. Subtracting self-consciousness became a catalyst for the lucid songs of Blondshell, on which her experiences all coalesce to form her truest expressions of self yet. It was me, as a person, in my songs, she says. When she showed a few to producer Yves Rothman (Yves Tumor, Girlpool, Porches), he encouraged her to write an album, joining a chorus of friends saying, This is you.

Powered by brilliant, crystalline melodies, Teitelbaums eloquent writing takes root in the concrete: every line is literal, a keyhole to a bigger truth. I think you watched way too much HBO growing up, goes Joiner, a blunt address of formative damage. Blondshell is about learning and unlearning, about untangling the ways were taught to accept bad behavior, about peeling the layers back. These intelligent songs often contain the epiphanies of therapy sessions more than pop sessions, even when the hooks are simply a blast.

Says Sabrina of Joiner: I was listening to a lot of Britpop when I wrote this song. A lot of those bands (The Verve, Pulp, Suede, Blur etc.) channeled dark subject matter, drugs, all this dirty stuff, but with a fun acoustic guitar under it. I was listening to The Replacements, too. Thats what this song was inspired by sonically. I wanted it to feel like youre watching HBO, where even though its heavy, its still a good time.