Fuck me, Du Blonde really has known some terrible cunts. And for 'cunts', obviously, you can swap in the word 'men'. Excuse the language, but listening to Sniff More Gritty, peppered as it is with references to manipulative men and their toxic behavioural patterns across its 12-track, 38-minute runtime, it's hard not to be enraged by just how often those [formerly] close to Du Blonde have sought to diminish the Newcastle-born singer/songwriter. Equally, however, it's impossible not to feel quietly thrilled by how brilliantly Du Blonde eviscerates these demons from her past here. If there's a core theme on the record, it is - to borrow a mock-Latin phrase featured in The Handmaid's Tale - Nolite te bastardes carborundorum: Don’t let the bastards grind you down. And that defiance makes Sniff More Gritty utterly irresistible.
Du Blonde's last record, the joyously uninhibited Homecoming, was one of the very best records of 2021, in fact one of the very best records of the decade, the sort of album that one could obsess over during the pandemic. I know this to be true because, at a point, I was listening to Homecoming up to five or six times a day, every day. At the time she was making that record, Du Blonde was convinced that it would be her final offering, a farewell 'fuck you' to the music industry, so disillusioned was she by years of being exploited, patronised, sexually harassed and gaslit. Self-produced, recorded solo on a laptop in her childhood bedroom, and released on her own label, Homecoming was the sound of liberation, and, ironically, it became the best-selling album of her career. Sniff More Gritty is much more than Homecoming Pt. II, but it shares with its predecessor a sense of no fucks given euphoria, born of the certain knowledge that no-one is ever going to be allowed to dictate terms to Du Blonde again.
If you're wondering just how awful Du Blonde's experiences of the music industry were, listen to Next Big Thing. Based around actual conversations that Houghton endured in the past - "He only touched you a few times, so, why does it bother you?" being the most chilling - it's a savagely sardonic dissection of music biz bullshit, with added venom supplied by a terrific cameo from Skunk Anansie's Skin. Then listen to opener Perfect ("Maybe in time I'll grow up to be, a quieter, simpler, prettier, better type of me") and the album's opening single Blame ("You swept me away like a hurricane / Nothing like a hard-on to hide my pain") to hear the relentless micro-aggressions that Houghton endured from former partners in her 20s while navigating this world. Is it any wonder the whole experience was such a mind-fuck?
As on Homecoming, which featured contributions from Garbage's Shirley Manson, Ezra Furman, and Ride's Andy Bell, Sniff More Gritty boasts a number of pleasing cameos, with Laura Jane Grace popping up on Solitary Individual (a joyous ode to the simple pleasures of being left the fuck alone), and Maxïmo Park’s Paul Smith and The Futureheads’ Ross Millard adding flourishes to the lushly theatrical Radio Jesus. But, not to dismiss these collaborations, this is very much Du Blonde's record, and amid the fizzing guitars and glam-punk swagger, the gorgeous piano ballad Out Of A Million - a song about "having to quit smoking weed" Du Blonde told me during an interview coming to Louder very soon - is a wonderful example of her artistry. Hearing it, this writer was reminded of Olivia Rodrigo's similarly brilliant Vampire, and it would be amazing if Du Blonde could be added to the bill of Rodrigo's London and Dublin mega-shows next summer, so that an emerging generation of music fans could have the opportunity to fall deeply in love with this fabulous, fearless talent. One thing is for certain though: Du Blonde is back standing on her own two feet, and this world is a much better place for having her music in it.
