Shuffling through Beabadoobee’s discography is like taking a waterslide tour of ’00s radio. Beatrice Kristi’s 2020 debut Fake It Flowers showcased windy, Alanis Morissette abandon, while 2022’s Beatopia twirled deeper into Hilary Duff territory with its Disneyland sparkle and talk of Tinkerbell. Kristi’s newly released third album, This Is How Tomorrow Moves, continues the trend in prime Suzanne Vega coffee shop style. This album—the first Beabadoobee album to be co-produced by pop music mystic Rick Rubin—is a more subdued, acoustic version of her eager sleepover soundtracks. That’s to its credit: This Is How Tomorrow Moves’ folk-pop experiments tend to be more impressive than its sweetness.
Call it growing up. While Beatopia conceptualized a fantasy world that Kristi created as a child, Kristi said in press materials that This Is How Tomorrow Moves is about womanhood, “I guess.” A lot has changed since she first started releasing music in 2017, at age 17. Now, at 24, she’s tried shrooms and gone on tour with Taylor Swift; most people will only ever accomplish half as much. So, with her third eye widened and career thriving, Kristi uses This Is How Tomorrow Moves to demonstrate that one compelling thing you can do with excess is eliminate it.
The album’s minimalist moments are its strongest. “California” and “Post” introduce clanging drum loops, recalling the sparse, twisted roots of a Tori Amos song like “Space Dog.” “Everything I Want,” a whispery lullaby about a crush, has a sly, Lisa Loeb lilt to its restrained guitar, distilling an all-purpose romance into something more potent. These quiet seconds of introspection add hand-puppet drama to This Is How Tomorrow Moves: darkness and a little friction. Kristi sounds like she’s moved past the soft suction-cup kissing of a Rachael Leigh Cook movie and unwrapped the gift of hindsight.
But This Is How Tomorrow Moves sometimes douses its introspection in unnecessary syrup. Kristi and her Beatopia collaborator (here, Rubin’s co-producer) Jacob Bugden have defanged bad feelings this way on past albums. Worried about your waistline, like Kristi sings on “Girl Song”? Beabadoobee pairs this anxiety with an overly sentimental piano. Noticing a tendency to infantilize yourself, as Kristi does on “Tie My Shoes”? Well, why not add a few cheerful horns. These flower-in-your-hair flourishes are reminiscent of the tail-wagging love songs that first made Beabadoobee famous on YouTube years ago, but amid the confident calm of the rest of This Is How Tomorrow Moves, they feel regressive, as safe as a pacifier.
Usually, Kristi spits it out. On “This Is How It Went”—which meanders so pleasantly, it could convince you to stay awake a little longer—she proudly defends her diaristic songwriting process. This twinkly waltz isn’t free from oversimplification (she shouts out Elliott Smith for writing songs “about situations”). But its narrative is also emblematic of the defiant confidence that makes much of This Is How Tomorrow Moves an accurate portrait of early adulthood. In the space between self-awareness and pride, there’s room to grow.
