Blonde Redhead – ‘Sit Down For Dinner’ album review: an intentionally understated return
There are few experiences more universal than sitting down for dinner. A reliable place to slump at the end of a rough work day, to celebrate a milestone with a bottle of something special, or to catch up with friends over the clinking of cutlery, the humble kitchen table has seen it all. On their first studio album in eight years, which takes its name from the pastime, Blonde Redhead invoke all the understated warmth and comfort that sitting down for dinner provides, a dependable haven from the adult anxieties they chart.
The project’s preoccupation with evening eating stems from each member of the shoegaze outfit. The Pace twins, Amedeo and Simone, have emphasised the cultural importance of sitting down for dinner since their youth in Italy. In adulthood, they found themselves equally strict and sentimental towards the ritual. Makino’s contribution to the title stems from her reading of Joan Didion – in the spring of 2020, she found herself struck by the passage, “Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends”, from the writer’s grief-fuelled The Year of Magical Thinking.
Between the Pace brothers’ tradition and the impact of Didion’s words, dinner became far more than its apparent mundanity to Blonde Redhead. Between the casual routine of sitting down for dinner each night, life and death happens. On Sit Down For Dinner, Blonde Redhead capture that tension effortlessly. “It’s sort of about death, but the music is so alive and groovy,” states Makino.
The record’s opening track, ‘Snowman’, immediately sets this tone. Understated, Brazilian-inspired grooves and seemingly carefree percussion are paired with contemplative lyrics about what it means to live, asking, “Do you feel alive or do you only fall?” Contrary to Makino’s promise of grooves, the majority of the album falls back into the dreamy, ethereal soundscapes we’ve come to know and love from Blonde Redhead, but that doesn’t make it any less full of life.
‘Rest of Her Life’ utilises soft acoustic strums and layered vocals to encapsulate the feelings of grief that inspired the album’s title. An ode to the vocalist’s late horse, the song finds Makino stepping outside of herself, observing, “I heard she lost her love one week ago, and she greets every horse, every day still talks to him.” It’s a track that is at once mournful and comforting, soft and heavy, ending with a forced sigh. ‘Before’ provides another moment of striking sonic beauty, chronicling doubt over intricate tones.
It’s in the album’s title tracks, though, that Blonde Redhead contain the meaning of sitting down for dinner most intimately. ‘Sit Down For Dinner Pt I’ combines muted, cosy synths and percussion with Makino’s modern worries about money and loneliness. ‘Sit Down For Dinner Pt II’ is all the more striking. “I know you’re tired of living, but dying is not so easy,” Makino promises over a playful soundscape. It contains all the anxieties of modern life without considering that it could all end at any moment. For now, though, they might only reliably be escaped by placing a needle on a record and sitting down for dinner.
Sit Down For Dinner is an album that casually flexes the three decades Blonde Redhead have spent together honing their sound, but it also gifts that togetherness to the listener. Their understated, warm soundscapes intentionally provide a backdrop for all the grief and glory that comes with being human, the things people will discuss over dinner forever. It’s an album so cosy that it almost feels like we’re sat at the kitchen table with them.
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