PHOTO CREDIT: ERIKA KAMANO
Beabadoobee has announced her hugely anticipated new album Pylon, which is available to pre-order and pre-save now, and due for release on 18 September via Dirty Hit and Interscope Records.
The follow up to her UK #1 album This Is How Tomorrow Moves, the stark and striking fourth album by beabadoobee is named for the electricity towers that dot every major artery in the world – the strong, spindly structures that reminded Beatrice Laus of her connection to friends and family at home while she was staring down extreme disconnection and isolation on tour over the past few years.
The title can also be read as an allusion to Laus’ spiky, forceful new sound – the waves of distortion that crash and shatter across this record’s 14 songs mirroring the intense crackle you hear when walking under power lines. The pylon is also a fitting symbol for an album that reckons with the repetitive anxieties of your mid-twenties: “What if I’m always going to be this way? / What if life is just pylon after pylon on the road?”
The album’s first single is available to stream and buy now: Sun Has Set introduces Pylon as, in essence, a set of songs that began as diary entries, words that Laus thought she’d never be able to say out loud. “A lot of the songs on this record are things I wish I could have said to someone,” she says. “This song (Sun Has Set) has a pretty tunnel vision – it’s like, I hate you. You’re gonna stay here and listen to how much I hate you, because I never got to stay that.”
The single is accompanied by a striking first person video directed by Bea’s partner and longtime visual collaborator Jake Erland.
PYLON LP | TRACK LIST
- Pylon
- Sun Has Set
- Estranged
- Switchblade
- Write Me A Letter
- It’s Alright
- In Motion
- Memories
- Nothing To Prove
- Radio
- Powerlines
- Spark
- Despite That
- Satellite
Ever a devotee of pure rock music – both as something to be cherished and something to be played with – Laus casts these feelings in songs that touch classic grunge, Midwest emo and ‘90s radio rock, zeroing in on a sound that is both harsher and more direct than any of her previous records. She says the music she loves has “always been an influence” on her own music and so, for B4, she went straight to the source. A fair few of beabadoobee’s composite influences contributed to Pylon, a fact that speaks of the goodwill and respect she has amassed over the course of her relatively brief career.
Hayley Williams sings on Nothing To Prove, a deeply anthemic indie-rock song about getting your power back from fair-weather friends who just want a bit of your success. The moody Powerlines features a verse from Turnstile singer Brendan Yates, a master of matching vocal force with emotional nuance. Elsewhere you’ll find contributions from Evan Stephens Hall of Pinegrove, Chino Moreno of Deftones and Shane Moran from Title Fight as well as, on Write Me A Letter, production work from Laus’ longtime friends and collaborators Matty Healy and George Daniel of The 1975.
Beabadoobee will debut songs from the record on The Powerlines Tour, her first ever headline arena shows and her biggest tour to date, taking in shows across North America, the UK and Europe this autumn-winter. The Powerlines Tour kicks off on 1 October and includes stops at New York Madison Square Garden, Los Angeles Kia Forum and London O2 Arena. Support comes from Wisp in the US, Canada and the UK, and Violet Grohl in Europe.
Fans can pre-order the album from beabadoobee’s webstore to access the exclusive ticket pre-sale running from Tuesday 30 June at 10:00am local time with general ticket on-sale Thursday 2 July at 10:00am local time. Visit www.beabadoobee.com/live for tickets and full pre-sale information.
UK dates as follows:
NOVEMBER
Sat 14 GLASGOW OVO Hydro
Mon 16 CARDIFF Utilita Arena
Tue 17 MANCHESTER AO Arena
Wed 18 LONDON O2 Arena
Born in the Philippines and raised in London, Beatrice Laus emerged as a British alternative music icon across three acclaimed albums and five EPs. She has garnered multiple BRIT Award and BBC Sound Of nominations and won the NME Radar Award, whilst amassing over 10 billion streams worldwide and more than 12 million followers across her social channels.
This Is How Tomorrow Moves became her first record to reach number 1 on the UK Official Album Chart in 2024, following her Top 10 albums Fake It Flowers (#8) in 2020 and Beatopia (#4) in 2022. Earlier this year, beabadoobee released the one-off single All I Did Was Dream Of You, teaming up with Grammy nominated best New Artist The Marias, the result of a longtime mutual creative admiration between Maria Zardoya and Bea.
