“Straight Line Was A Lie,” the opening and title track from the Beths’ new record, kicks off with a mistake. Three seconds into the propulsive riff, everyone stops, and you hear a band member apologize: “Sorry, I was thinking about something else.” Then it starts up again, and as the crackling midtempo stomper kicks into gear, that tossed-off mea culpa becomes a rallying cry of sorts: This may be a studiously refined pop-rock record, but thematically, it’s about embracing mistakes, welcoming the need to start over—and that’s a good thing.
Four albums in, it’s pretty clear the Beths have earned their stripes. The band has been around for over a decade at this point, and if there are any lingering questions regarding their razor-sharp chops—or singer-guitarist Elizabeth Stokes’ ace songwriting prowess—well, that person probably hasn’t been listening. 2020’s Jump Rope Gazers was mostly about proving that their superb debut, Future Me Hates Me, was no fluke, delivering sugar-coated indie-rock anthems while firming up the Beach Boys-esque harmonies deployed over their Superchunk-meets-a-sock-hop sound. And if 2022’s Expert In A Dying Field wasn’t exactly an evolution, it certainly demonstrated a band who had locked into its style, and was simply proceeding to deliver the goods.
That dependability serves them well on Straight Line Was A Lie. While all the usual parts are here—catchy riffs, sing-along choruses, earnest ballads, ebullient rockers, all of it paired with Stokes’ lovely, evocative lyricism—there’s a newfound maturity and expansiveness to the songwriting and arrangements. The first couple records maintained a rough-and-tumble indie vibe, but as with Expert, things here shift even further into an impressively polished result. Guitarist Jonathan Pearce’s production skills have leveled up to match the ambition of Stokes’ increasingly involved compositions. Far more than anything that’s come before from The Beths, Straight Line is a headphones album, reveling in layers of instrumentation and sonic tinkering that reward close listening.
Throughout, the record returns to questions of emotional uncertainty; what does it mean to feel, to love, to grieve, and how do we know what we think we know—or, more confusing still, can feeling even be translated into knowing? It’s heady stuff, but as she’s always done, Stokes takes the searching, the yearning—the need to add just one more modifier—and turns it into deceptively simple lyrics. “White painted walls, how are we going to fill them all? / I don’t know it ‘til my pen hits the page,” she admits on the sweet, peppy “Roundabout,” but she needn’t worry; nearly every track here is packed with ideas and emotions, not overstuffed but certainly bursting the seams of any singular feeling or vibe.
That’s not a complaint. If anything, her restless muse prevents the songs from ever coming across as pat, or reductive, no matter how painstakingly the band drills down on a single melody or groove. The fuzzed-out post-punker “No Joy” looks, at first blush, to be more straightforward, with a dark riff paired to lyrics about how “All my pleasures: guilty… this year’s gonna kill me.” But then it strikes a pleasant, bright chord, with harmonies, flute, and recorder creating a sunny contrapuntal effect to her practically muttering “no joy” repeatedly. “Ark Of The Covenant” similarly upends expectations, as her dark ruminations (“Seeking the evil part of me / that pulls me out of my humanity”) are supported by a gentle bass line, before some backing vocals and synth-laden soundscapes swap in beauty for the brutal.
And that clever alternation between hope and despair—lightness and dark trading off at unexpected moments—carries across the album as a whole. “Mosquitos” weds an acoustic riff to idyllic imagery before Stokes conjures up the notion of a storm ripping apart the banks of a river as a metaphor for going on after a loss: “I’m letting go now of what I’m not / A little less now than there was.” Ferocious rocker “Take” applies some classic Beths dual-guitar riffing, one gentle, one not, as the rhythm section of bassist Benjamin Sinclair and drummer Tristan Deck elevates the material with involved, precise fills. The closest Stokes gets to pure, uncomplicated emotion comes from the mournful beauty of the acoustic strummer “Mother, Pray For Me,” as she catches her breath amid all the rock.
But perhaps the best example of how impressively the Beths have upped their game comes in the form of two tracks: album centerpiece “’Til My Heart Stops” and closer “Best Laid Plans.” Both are stately, gently swinging numbers that build slowly and eventually rise into cathartic release, the former adding layer after layer and harmony after harmony, while the latter’s instrumentation glides along, all flourishes and arpeggiated punctuation. All that… plus bongos and congas? Seriously. It should sound ridiculous, but Stokes and company make it not just work, but soar. Making something a little outré sound like it always belonged? Sounds like the Beths to me.
Alex McLevy is a critic based in Chicago. His writing has appeared in numerous publications including The A.V. Club, The Nation, Punk Planet, and more.
