nme reviewed Pylon by beabadoobee 2d
making peace with the mess of being in your mid-twenties — There’s a very particular type of panic that swoops in once you hit your mid-twenties. It’s like you have no clue where the rest of your life is heading, and you’re somehow expected to act like an adult when you still feel like a teenager at heart. For Beabadoobee, that uncertainty has fuelled a blistering fourth album, ‘Pylon’. Inspired by the isolation, nostalgia, anger and romantic obsession that have coloured her last few years, Beatrice Laus has crafted her most forceful record yet.
The title is a fitting analogy. Pylons are fixed points on a shifting landscape, carrying power across long distances, but they’ve also acted as a reminder of home while Laus was on the road, separated from the people she loved. Musically, ‘Pylon’ marks a significant shift, too. Charged with distorted guitars, grunge, ’90s radio rock and Midwest emo, it has the collaborators to match: Hayley Williams, Turnstile’s Brendan Yates, Pinegrove’s Evan Stephens Hall, Deftones’ Chino Moreno, Matty Healy and George Daniel all make appearances, while Title Fight’s Shane Moran co-wrote eight tracks across the collection.
Lead single ‘Sun Has Set’ sets the scene, twisting resentment into euphoria as Laus snarls: “When I say, ‘We’ll never be friends’ / I mean, we’ll never pretend.” That sentiment runs through the record’s first half, as ‘Switchblade’ toys with the instinct to fight or flee and ‘Write Me A Letter’ switches from indie-pop into churning pop-punk. Inspired by the shame of admitting your own wrongdoings, it’s fraught with the anxious energy of growing into adulthood.
The second half cools things down, marked by ‘Memories’, which Laus calls the album’s happiest song. Romanticising bygone moments, it recalls her teenage years of writing alone in her bedroom, feeling “sad as fuck”. It’s also where ‘Pylon’ draws in some of its heftier collaborations. Williams appears on ‘Nothing To Prove’, bringing extra poignancy to a song about reclaiming power from fairweather friends. On ‘Spark’, co-written with Hall, Laus leans into oblique, darker imagery, while Yates’ verse on ‘Powerlines’ slots neatly alongside hers as they reflect on always returning to someone, despite the passing of time.
It’s in these moments that Laus’ emotional maturity and songwriting credentials shine brightest. Closer ‘Satellite’, featuring Moreno’s backing vocals, cements that feeling, as she sings, “Everyday doom scrolling like I’ve lost all control / I give the generation, a new infatuation / If only I knew how to cope with the times”. ‘Pylon’ feels deliberately unresolved. Beabadoobee doesn’t have the answers to the anxieties that come with growing up, and she doesn’t seem to need them. There’s something liberating about simply admitting you’re still figuring it out.
