It has always been difficult to get through talking about The Beths without a string of "but stills" or "and yets", with the band occupying 'Indie Band' territory with a self-consciousness that can frustrate even while it charms. To be fair, singer and main songwriter Elizabeth Stokes has always tackled such doubts and tensions through her lyrics, and here we find the background to this album has the Auckland quartet dealing with writer’s block through immersing themselves in LA’s omnivorous culture.
Now, The Beths have a great ear for a pithy line or title to set the scene: “Expert In A Dying Field” could be LinkedIn’s theme tune for the 2020s, if it wasn’t actually about love; “Future Me Hates Me” is to-the-point genius. Title track “Straight Line was a Lie” lays down the motif of circularity, while lacking the appealing immediacy of the aforementioned. It is through Stokes’ experience with mental health and medication that we get to the ideas of progress as illusion and stability through conscious maintenance. Accordingly, the track goes in a circle. A couple of times.
“No Joy” delves further by addressing the dampening effects of an SSRI, and yet it doesn’t really escape its point. A drum roll followed by staccato fuzz chug is a Stooges thing, but where “No Fun” managed to create the exact opposite, “No Joy” does not. Anhedonic is a fine word, it just presents a barrier when it’s sung.
The single “Metal” takes us back to where The Beths shine.
Johnny Marr-style arpeggios and jangle from writing partner Jonathan
Pearce drive this one, and with a sweet hook and unmistakable melody
it’s the standout track here. It is also about SSRIs, albeit their
physical impact. “So you need the metal in your blood to keep you alive”
feels like it might actually improve one’s health just to sing it, and
that is a perfectly pleasant feeling.
Stripped back to a solo guitar and vocal “Mother, Pray For
Me” competes for top prize primarily through its sensitive handling of
difference and distance despite unconditional love. It offers general
moving meaning despite its very specific source. And that’s really where
The Beth’s work.
The remainder just doesn’t cut through. Roundabout brings
us back to the circularity of experience and those trusty pleasing
arpeggio twirls, but, like its theme, does not get anywhere. Similarly
Ark of the Covenant pits the process of exploration versus the fear of
discovery: “It’s hard it imagine it”, “I don’t know what’s gonna
happen”, and it’s as if this same doubt is preventing the band making a
decision to do something interesting.
Of the time spent in LA, what you do get in the sound is
some of the city’s pleasant lo-rise hum-drum; what you can’t hear is any
of the time spent imbibing The Go-Gos and Olivia Rodrigo. This is an
album that lacks the fun and hooks of their earlier outings, but, look,
it’s also a very public working out of a difficult period and such
trials are one of the reasons we care for The Beths and why we’ll be
sticking with them.
