Between silence and static, Pylon comes alive

By Staff Writer Yewon Kim

While some albums just serve as a collection of songs, Pylon feels like a familiar place. On September 18, Beatrice Kristi Ilejay Laus, more commonly known by stage name beabadoobee, released her fourth studio album, Pylon. It replaces the sweetness of her earlier works with a messier, unstable collision of grunge, alternative rock, and emo styles. Across 14 tracks, she moves between themes of yearning, rage, and fragility, consistently capturing the phase of self-discovery and isolation that come with maturity. The diverse range of collaborators, including Hayley Williams, Brendan Yates, and Chino Moreno, highlights the polarity of the atmosphere created — a whirlwind of soft melodies and deafening instrumentals. 

The title track starts off delicately with soft acoustics, expressing beabadooobee’s homesickness through its lyrics before loud and chaotic moments of instrumental distortion. The tension between beabadoobee’s honey-like voice and the album’s uncanny rhythm becomes the heartbeat of Pylon. Songs like “Sun Has Set” and “Switchblade” are urgent and raw, while tracks like “Estranged” and “Write Me A Letter” bring back the candid and nostalgic vibe that the album carries. 

With its juxtaposition of conflicting styles, Pylon is the epitome of what it feels like to grow up and experience uncomfortable change. “I had a vision of that … complicated feeling of loving what you do so much but being lost in the sacrifice that sometimes comes with it,” co-producer Luca Buccellati said in an interview with Highsnobiety magazine.

What makes Pylon especially compelling is the way its contradictions seem intentional. Even when the album slows down, beabadoobee’s vocals and the layered instrumentation retain the intensity of the album. She has the ability to sound vulnerable without breaking down, and loud without losing the intimacy of the message being delivered. “Nothing To Prove,” featuring Hayley Williams, bursts with pop-punk energy, while “Powerlines,” featuring Brendan Yates, pivots to an emo-style ambience,  using intense guitar loops. Then, right when the album seems ready to explode with ferocity, “Despite That” reduces everything to a brief, ghostly pause.

That pause acts as a temporary calm before the storm, leading up to when “Satellite” plays. As the longest and most expansive song on the album, beabadoobee’s screams feel less like an ending and more like the uncertainty that comes with being left alone in an immense, new place. 

Pylon never settles comfortably into one mood. Instead, it keeps pushing and pulling between tenderness and noise, nostalgia and frustration, until the distinction between them nearly disappears and reflects the messy, restless, and uniquely beautiful nature of the album. It simulates the feeling of sitting in the backseat of a car with the wind blasting towards you through rolled-down windows. Although it might come off as disorganized for someone who struggles to grasp the conveyed themes, Pylon has the effect of allowing listeners to sit quietly with their own thoughts for one moment before erupting in chaotic bursts of pop-punk beats the next.

 

Grade: A-