Following a growing social media frenzy that culminated in Beabadoobee (or Bea for short) opening for Taylor Swift at multiple stops on her Eras tour, the Filipino-British singer-songwriter has released her third studio album, This Is How Tomorrow Moves. Having signed with independent label Dirty Hit, in April of 2018, Beabadoobee’s (or Bea for short) career has gone from strength to strength that has seen her garner a large and loyal following.
The success of the London-based pop-star’s 2022 LP Beatopia saw her embark on an immensely popular world tour where she would record and release two live albums in 2023: Live in LA and Live in London. Despite this hectic schedule, Bea found time to join creative forces with industry veteran and prolific hitmaker Rick Rubin, who is credited with producing 12 of the album’s 14 songs.
Somewhat disappointingly, in spite of the star-power and enormous marketing budget invested into this album, I found the singles released in the run-up to its release felt more hit-and-miss than those on Bea’s sophomore LP, Beatopia, which had included the stellar indie-rock bangers 10:36 and Talk.
Nevertheless, the album does open well with its lead single Take A Bite. This track feels like Beabadoobee’s bread-and-butter, a straight-forward indie pop ballad. From its sticky chorus to its tongue-in-cheek lyrics, not to mention the excellent guitar work on the bridge that has come to be expected on Bea’s singles. This is followed up on strongly with California, which could easily been a single as well. Here Bea reaches for her indie-rock bag with a fantastic electric guitar groove and one of her smoothest vocal performances. As with the previous track, the chorus is an excellent earworm.
One Time is a stellar dream-pop track, with its instrumental slowing down the rapid pace set by the opening tracks. Whilst the first half of the track isn’t revolutionary, the bridge really builds up steam with its rhythmic and prominent percussion that pairs with echo effects on the vocals and distorted guitars to create a manic frenzy on the backend of the track.
On Real Man, Bea opts for a more bedroom-pop approach, flexing her versatility. The lyrics bemoan the lack of reciprocated interest of a former partner. Whilst the soft keyboard and cute strings pair well with Bea’s vocals, the writing leaves something to be desired. This problem does unfortunately rear its head again on the latter half of the tracklist with A Cruel Affair as well as The Man Who Left Too Soon, which both fail to leave a lasting impression, despite the latter’s personal exploration of the star’s childhood and struggles associated with the lack of a prominent father figure.
However, this is not an accurate reflection of Bea’s writing on the entire record. In fact, Tie My Shoes is a much more effective attempt at the dream-pop aesthetic with its nostalgia-tinged lyrics and pretty wind lines backing up a steady vocal performance. Girl Song once again proves Bea’s chops as a songwriter, this time in the form of a tender pop ballad where she tackles her challenges with growing into her own womanhood and struggles grappling with her own identity.
Beabadoobee follows up on these successes with two empassioned romantic tracks, Coming Home and Ever Seen (the LP’s second and third singles respectively). Whilst both have cute lyrics, Coming Home comes and goes with few memorable moments and includes a slightly awkward bridge made up of a horn section that appears to serve only to add a touch of variety to the track. By contrast, Ever Seen is an excellent song. It features arguably Bea’s strongest and most consistent melodic vocal performance on the entire record as well as delivering some genuinely heart-warming lyrics. The post-chorus instrumental fits in snugly and helps to keep the tempo up nicely as well.
Prior to the record’s final leg, Post picks up the tempo as Bea once again reaches for her indie-rock bag. The distorted guitar riff on the bridge is a well-placed addition but the track is held back by its slightly repetitive chorus. Beaches, the most recently released of the four singles provides another highlight in the tracklist with its catchy hook and fun guitar bridge. Whilst the song structure and aesthetic isn’t exactly revolutionary (within the record or in the indie-pop genre more generally), neither is it claiming to be and that, to me at least, is part of the appeal.
Unfortunately, the album fails to continue this quality into its final leg. Both Everything I Want and The Man Who Left Too Soon are bedroom pop tracks that fail to stand out from amongst the stronger vocal and lyrical performances earlier on the LP. This Is How It Went is still a respectable outro, which sees Bea addressing the near-universal experience of the descent into apathy towards the end of a relationship. Whilst Bea’s pen game is as sharp as ever on this track, the continuation of the run of lo-fi instrumentals from previous tracks could easily lead it be overlooked due to listener fatigue.
This record is another positive addition to Beabadoobee’s growing catalogue that provides her fans with a selection of stellar tracks from across her usual range of styles, this time with new and improved song-writing skills. Despite this, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed that this LP is not a significant departure from Beatopia, both stylistically and in quality. Whilst having Rick Rubin perform each track acapella before adding an instrumental has clearly improved Bea’s writing skills, the pair seem to have been unwilling to step outside of her sonic comfort zone. Still, Beabadoobee has curated an album with plenty of great tracks for a range of settings and moods.
This album is decent, 6.5/10.
Theo Aveline 