Beabadoobee - 'Beatopia'

Following last year's 'Our Extended Play', London-based singer songwriter Beatrice Laus (now known to the world as Beabadoobee) releases the full-length successor to 'Fake It Flowers', the acclaimed debut album that won her the NME Radar Award, and saw Beabadoobee included in the BBC's Sound of 2020 poll.
 
Beatopia (pronounced 'bay-a-toe-pee-uh', right?) sees the 22 year old generation-Z icon broaden her horizons with a diverse and experimental collection, beginning with the trippy chant of 'is it me or recently, time is moving slowly?' in Beatopia Cultsong, and concluding with the beautiful ear-worm of a love song that is 'You're Here, That's The Thing'. It is an album that maintains one foot in step with her love of the 1990's, and with indie guitar bands, but sees her expanding chameleon-like into new territories, including mid-west emo, hip-hop, and even bossa-nova, yet still preserving her own spikey kookiness.
 
Lead single 'Talk' forms the bridge between 'Fake It Flowers' and the new album – maintaining a grungey Smashing Pumpkins guitar sound but adding the pop angst of early noughties Avril Lavigne. Follow-up 'See You Soon' is a coming-of-age comfort blanket, complete with singalong chorus, whilst new single 'Lovesong' displays melodic maturity within balladic simplicity and ethereal purity.
 
Other standout tracks on ‘Beatopia’ include 'Broken CD', with its gentle build and Kosheen-like trippiness; the Latin influence and bossa-nova rhythms that are coupled with acoustic guitar and string arrangements in 'The Perfect Pair'; and 'Pictures of Us', co-written and sung with The 1975's Matt Healy. And don’t forget the super-psychedelia of ‘Tinkerbell Is Overrated’.
 
Destined to be one of the standout albums of 2022, make sure you catch Beabadoobee at Reading and Leeds Festival this summer, or at the Nick Rayns LCR here in Norwich on October 8th. This is going to be the year of Beatopia.
 
9/10