Album Review: beabadoobee, Pylon

You might know beabadoobee for her breakout 2017 viral hit 'Coffee', Beatopia's standout 'The Perfect Pair', or the acoustic -driven romance of 'Glue Song'.

With Pylon, she continues to push bedroom and alternative pop further, proving that the hits are still coming.

The album and title track take their name from the electricity towers that became a recurring sight on highways and city edges while beabadoobee – born Beatrice Laus – was touring. They became a reminder of home amid the isolation of travelling, forming a core theme of the album: loneliness.

Many of the tracks become conversations – things Laus wishes she could have told family and friends amid the confusion of being so far from home. "I'd rather be nowhere with you / Than somewhere without you" are the first lines of the album's opening track, 'Pylon'. Following distant chatter and laughter, she immediately sets the tone: we're outsiders, much like she was at the time, experiencing these moments from the sidelines.

Anxious guitars and screeching feedback carry more anger and energy than we've heard from her before. 'Estranged' and 'Switchblade' contain some of the album's best-building climaxes, with unassuming beginnings bursting into moody choruses.

There are huge collaborations throughout the project. Deftones' Chino Moreno and Pinegrove's Evan Stephens Hall provide additional vocals and instrumentation, while Title Fight's Shane Moran co-produced the entire album.

A standout crossover comes in 'Nothing to Prove' with Paramore's Hayley Williams. Williams leans into a more controlled vocal space, allowing her to match Laus' indie-pop warmth while retaining her signature crispness.

These collaborations prevent Pylon from becoming a one-dimensional record. By leaning on architects of hardcore, shoegaze and pop-punk, Laus moves seamlessly between aggressive loud-quiet-loud guitar passages and melodic acoustic moments without losing the album's identity.

It's an album about distance, but it never feels distant. Instead, beabadoobee turns the isolation of touring into something more intimate – a record that finds familiarity in the spaces between home and everywhere else.

8/10