Wake up, indie fans, Beabadoobee nation is here.
This season is full of indie stars releasing amazing albums. Over the summer, we got Phoebe Bridgers’ “Lost Weekend,” her first album in six years. Phoebe delivered on her irony-packed lyrics to explore emotional dynamics with her late father, let us know that she is in a healthy relationship with Bo Burnham and heal the hearts of many heartbroken Boygenius fans with a couple of Easter egg tracks. Then recently, we got Paris Paloma’s “The Fatal Flaw,” a defiant, feminist album inspired by Greek mythology that subverts patriarchal expectations. It surpassed the expectations of many longtime Paloma fans.
I predict, however, that the greatest gift of indie stars this season is Beabadoobee’s fourth studio album, “Pylon,” which was released Friday, Sept. 18. Beabadoobee, once a bedroom pop singer-songwriter known for her delicate voice, is now an all-out ’90s alt-rock grunge star. If old Beabadoobee had you bobbing your head along to her songs in your bedroom, “Pylon” transports you to the front row of a rock concert. Listening to her new album makes me want to run wild and free in an endless field and — hardly able to contain my excitement — make air drum and guitar gestures all at the same time. It is the perfect transition the indie music world needed.
Beabadoobee has a team of rock songwriters, producers and instrumentalists shaping her sound, including producers like Jason Vance Harris, who spent nine months as her touring guitarist, along with Gianluca Buccellati, a producer, songwriter and mix engineer, and Luca Caruso, who tours as the drummer in her band. The 1975 bandmates Matty Healy and George Daniel produced “Write Me A Letter” for the album. Title Fight guitarist Shane Moran, co-wrote eight of the songs on “Pylon,” including “Sun Has Set.” “Nothing to Prove” is Beabadoobee’s first collaboration with Hayley Williams, whom Beabadoobee has called “the blueprint” and her childhood hero. Rock band Turnstile’s drummer Brendan Yates provides vocals for a verse in “Powerlines,” making the song hit harder.
Back in March of this year, Beabadoobee’s collaboration with The Marías, “All I Did Was Dream of You,” marked her full transition to indie rock. The song had an expansive sound layered with snippets of scratchy, then soaring lead guitar — these textural elements and her singing technique were distinct from any other song she’d ever done. Her style on the music video was also a direct shift to alt-rock. This song had fans buzzing over what her fourth album would sound like.
For me, “Pylon” is a no-skip album that gifted us numerous indie anthems. This is thanks to her rock collaborations, her adept vocals and the clear framework of the album. Beabadoobee wrote the songs while on tour and described pylon towers she saw on the road as a reminder of the people she missed. She draws on imagery from being on the road to symbolize her homesickness and disconnect from loved ones while touring. In the first lines of her opening track, the title song, she writes, “I’d rather be nowhere with you than somewhere without you … At least we’re connected / like a pylon on the open road.” Songs like “Satellite” and “Powerlines” continue this theme and build on the tonal intensity of her desperation and physical manifestations of homesickness.
There are multiple tracks that are immediately sure to be crowd pleasers. Songs like “Sun Has Set” and “In Motion” debut Beabadoobee’s rock vocal belting and have catchy lyrics that fans will be shouting at the top of their lungs. The combination of Beabadoobee’s rock belting and growls juxtaposed with her more delicate and mellow vocals showcases her range and mastery of representing both vulnerable and fierce moments. This vocalization layered with loud percussion and a heavily distorted guitar is mesmerising. “Estranged” is a good example of how Beabadoobee is able to blend her emotions of wanting the security of being home with her uncertainty of being in new environments. Her feelings of desperation are reflected in scratchy guitar riffs that mimic the feeling of a headache seen in the lyrics, “I’ve got a fever … a hundred degrees.” The interludes of cleaner tones of guitar with buzzy guitar creates an underlying sense of unease and maintains a heavy tone that reflects her raw emotions. Between and within songs, the moods will shift from softer to hard hitting tones, creating bold punctuations in the beat drop of the chorus of “Satellite” and “It’s Alright.” In “It’s Alright,” she begs her lover to “waste my, waste my, waste my time … take your, take my, take your time,” in a joyous interlude. But “Satellite” admits that her infatuation is all consuming, with the lyrics, “orbiting you like a satellite.” Meanwhile, “Switchblade” is heavy on distortion and heartbreak, while “Write Me a Letter” switches the mood again with a more mellow tone.
This album is for anyone who is missing home, going through a frustrating moment in their life or appreciates rare talent and indie rock. This album has everything — it captures the thrill of being in love, frustration, anger and teen angst. This album surpassed my expectations and revealed a side of Beabadoobee that I thought was impossible. It brings back the lead guitar that worked so well in “All I Did Was Dream of You” and puts her breathtaking vocals at the forefront. Beabadoobee’s technique is changing, and I am excited to see how her future projects evolve with her different artistic influences. It’s clear her vocal talent, collaboration and exploration of rock genres is a perfect formula for an indie-rock legend. As Beabadoobee says in “Satellite,” “I’d give the generation a new infatuation … If only I knew how to cope with the times.”
