Album Review: beabadoobee - ‘Pylon’

Grunge grows up: beabadoobee turns twentysomething chaos into her most electrifying record yet.

On her fourth album, Beatrice Laus (better known as beabadoobee) unlocks a cultivating realisation: your twenties do not bring the clarity you wished for in your teens. ‘Pylon’ is embroiled in a rich sense of longing and angst, melancholy and nostalgia. Across a run time of 41 minutes, she sprawls over bombastic grunge and lighter moments of reflection.

Opening with the title track, Laus is underscored by rich, fleeting guitars, and the occasional atmospheric string. Her characteristic falsetto glides over the production as she sings “I’d rather be nowhere with you, than somewhere without you”. Moreover, it fantastically sets up the central motif of the pylon, in trying to be connected in a space of isolation.

Unlocking a persistent sense of fleeting anxiety, beabadoobee weaves in these emotions across her metallic soundscapes. On ‘Write Me A Letter’, produced by The 1975’s Matty Healy and George Daniel, the warm, strummed indie tones soon swing into an outburst of heavy distortion and half-time drums.

The production is as roaring as the catalogue of collaborators Laus has constructed. The glitchy ‘Powerlines’ brilliantly enlists the support of Turnstile’s mellow-toned Brendan Yates, and will almost certainly be heard blaring out the speakers of HMV’s across the country. And, of course, Paramore’s Hayley Williams elevates the anarchic punchiness of ‘Nothing To Prove’: a raucous, indie-rock anthem that will undoubtedly sound even better live.

Williams’ inspiration is glittered across the tracklist, especially on ‘Switchblade’. The drawn back tempo, sits in a gentle rhythm adorned with overdriven guitar and rhythmic bass lines.

“Do you start the fight? Or take the flight?” Laus sings through a filtered vocal, in a conversational tone that diverges her from previous musical explorations.

And that is arguably the strongest success of ‘Pylon’ - Laus’ commitment to utilising live instrumentation and experimenting with 90s rock sounds. The lead single ‘Sun Has Set’ conjures a hooky guitar riff that leaps out of the headphones in a visceral release of emotion. However the biggest emotional release comes with the album’s crescendo and closer, ‘Satellite’. Beabadoobee’s soft, luscious vocals are knocked out for a chilling belt, as she sings “I’m looking up under the stars”, which cuts through the precisely layered amplified and distorted guitars.

It would be very easy to be drowned out by such punchy and abrasive sonic elements, yet Laus finds strength in it. She is as lambastic as she is contemplative, wielding with the complexity of young adulthood. And in this turbulent world, that’s something any young person can connect to.

4/5

'Pylon' is out now via Dirty Hit/Interscope Records

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