Beatrice Laus has a clear head on This Is How Tomorrow Moves. For her third record, the singer-songwriter, who records as Beabadoobee, steps outside of the whimsical world she built on 2022’s Beatopia and faces the messy reality of becoming an adult. For Laus, that means owning her faults — a rite of passage she tackles like a champ.
The London-based, Filipino-born artist basically came of age in the spotlight: In 2017, at 17, she went viral for her bubbly track “Coffee,” and signed to independent label Dirty Hit a year later. Laus followed up the internet hit with several indie-rock inspired EPs and a clever debut LP in 2020, Fake It Flowers. Two years later, she released the psychedelic, fairy-inspired Beatopia. In between churning out her unique blend of Nineties-inspired pop rock, she took the stage at Coachella and as an opener for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. Now, at 24, she is using her latest offering to reexamine the whirlwind years she just lived through.
Laus cuts to the core with the opening track on This Is How Tomorrow Moves, “Take a Bite.” She sings, “I love to watch it bleed,” with a smirk, leaning into the chaos of her emotional landscape, only to realize she is addicted to the pain she often causes. Even though Bea is owning this flaw, it’s something she wants to change: “Don’t want to risk just making all the same mistakes,” she sings to a new lover between the twinkling strums of “Everseen.”
She continues to turn inward on “The Man That Left Too Soon,” a pensive note that finds the singer unpacking her issues with her absent father. “In a state of finding comfort in familiar places,” Laus whispers against a folky guitar, before realizing a key lesson: “The sadness is only temporary. It comes and it goes.” It’s an incredibly mature statement for a song that ends with the stinging line, “I wish I had met the man who had left too soon.” It’s clear Laus wants to continue to move past her trauma. “Writing cause I’m healing, never writing songs to hurt you,” she sings on “This Is How It Went.” But she still gets stuck on her traipse through womanhood on the morose ballad “Girl Song,” where she admits, “I’m figuring it out at my own pace” while fighting with her reflection in the mirror.
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Bea’s growth sounds the strongest on album highlight “Beaches.” As crunchy guitars that recall Weezer’s “Island in the Sun” crash around the chorus, she finds her bliss in life’s duality, sharing her latest discovery: “Don’t wait for the tide, just to dip both your feet in.” Of course, the sentiment is reached in the serenity of Malibu, the home of producer Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La studio.
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For someone who is still figuring it all out, Beabadoobee has never sounded as self-assured as she does on This Is How Tomorrow Moves. Thanks to the help of Rubin’s attentive production style, the album ventures into new territory but makes it feel worn-in. On “Coming Home,” Beabadoobee rounds out the mundane sweetness of missing her partner with jaunty, jazz-inflected jumps that brings to mind her peer, pop singer Laufey. Meanwhile, the sexy, bouncing bass on “Real Man” channels Bea’s inner Fiona Apple and serves as a perfect companion to her flawless falsetto.
But Bea is at her best when she mixes her super-charged guitar licks with sleek beats that are so good they conjure both a satisfying sense of nostalgia and prickly excitement. Whether it’s the sizzling chords in “Beaches” or in-your-face percussion in “Post,” Bea has crystallized her sonic landscape, thanks to her command of guitar and her angelic delivery. It’s a feat that makes us excited for whatever comes next.
