Blonde Redhead Entice Ears Through Technicolor Melodic Lens On ‘Sit Down For Dinner’
The obnoxiously enticing pink that graces the cover of Blonde Redhead’s latest studio album sums up the music better than any paragraph could. The blinding artwork for Sit Down for Dinner exemplifies the sonic juxtaposition that flows through these songs. Plush textures that evoke the feeling of biting into a marshmallow get painted with lyrics of grief and loneliness, a musical conflict that is in no rush to be resolved. Blonde Redhead’s tenth studio release showcases a restless group of musicians putting their confusion to gentle melodies in a heartfelt attempt to make sense of the unexplainable. Ironically, the music of Sit Down for Dinner is unexplainable in its own right, risks were taken and goals were achieved in the making of these 11 stunning displays of artsy, ambient pop music. Blonde Redhead deconstructed their musical perception to create their most sprawling album to date, an album loaded with tense songs that seemingly melt into a puddle of otherworldly textures.
Sit Down for Dinner seems to center around the idea of loss and how to handle losing someone or something. This bleak narrative is cut with infectious tempos and palpable textures that evoke the feeling of floating while the songwriting anchors you to reality. It is a cosmic journey through the grieving process as the band pens moving poetry to express their views on harsh realities. This sonic conflict drives Blonde Redhead’s Sit Down for Dinner and builds a formula for the band to reconfigure to a blissful LP brimming with grandiose arrangements and powerful statements.
The unpredictability of the album gives the band the element of surprise and they take full advantage of it. They start things off with the thumping “Snowman”, a sentimental tune with unforgettable tempos and gentle melodies. They bring that same level of lushness and give it an edge on “Kiss Her Kiss Her” with one of the best vocal performances on the album over impressive drums that switch between twinkling and demanding. The two-part title track is one of the most bold and beautiful musical moments in Blonde Redhead’s storied career. Part one is made up of abstract ambiance and whispering falsettos that give off an all-encompassing warmth while part two is pure avant-garde pop bliss. This title track sums up the battling tones of the album and how the band took advantage of these moments to create a statement piece of an album.
Sit Down for Dinner struck a perfect balance of artistic ambition and veteran musicianship. Everything from the confessional songwriting of “I Thought You Should Know” or the masterful bridges on tracks like “Not For Me” and “Melody Experiment” feels like a pure expression from a band with little to prove career-wise and a whole lot of questions for the world around them. Sit Down for Dinner is a kaleidoscope look into the grieving process narrated by vague yet palpable poetry and set to dense textures that carry the warmth of the sun and the weight of the world. Sit Down for Dinner is an album you need to hear multiple times to understand the nuanced beauty of it all, allow Blonde Redhead to wash away the worries of reality and view these stressors through their technicolor, melodic lens.