The Beths

Had to miss their show last night to go to band practice (no regrets!). New stuff sounds great!

all heaters

squeeeee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5ZxW1r1Zc8

new reason to live/new beths album out 9/16

WHAAAAAAAAT

https://thebethsnz.bandcamp.com/album/expert-in-a-dying-field

only took one listen of "silence is golden" for me to proclaim them the greatest band of all time, guitar go brrr

omgo.gomglmgomgkmjngnn

woo

i liked the shot of the drummer "driving the car" (keeping the engines running, keeping the beat) during the solo of the guitar player (who has lost his glasses)

2022 is saved!

New album art is a marginal improvement over the last one:
Expert In A Dying Field
https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1119979697_16.jpg

Now I just need to decide if the Spring Green vinyl is worth a dollar more than the Canary Yellow vinyl.

Looks like A Real Thing isn't on the album. Bit disappointed about that.

sign me up for this one, let's fucking go!

Long Hair cut his hair!

also: AOTY, obvs

i totally read the album title as 'expert at dying in a field' and was really feeling that sentiment tbh

wow that has to be one of their best songs

Top shelf stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KACt6YhOyY

Gorgeous

JFC this is so fucking good!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XriDeVHO8w

that was one of the most exciting narratives about bungee-jumping that i've ever seen

Liz's expression when she finally jumps is definitely something like primal panic.

*invests heavily in short-term bungee jumping stocks*

Earth's best rock band.

I was just going to write exactly that!

it's incredible what they're doing. and their relative profile ... and how big they could get if they get the right breaks. i am already worried about them getting huge and people not knowing i have loved them for years. :)

just realised they're playing here the day after the album's out, hooray

they're in North America right now and just announced they are going to tour it again in March.... and it looks like bigger venues?

siick

i don't know that I've given the last couple songs a real fair hearing yet because I'm obsessed with Silence is Golden

The title track has become a contender for my favorite song of the year. It kinda reminds me of a lyric Robert Pollard might have written at his peak.

So tickets went on sale this morning for a Beths gig in March 2023 at the 1,200 seat 930 Club in W DC @ 10 am this morning et. I signed ono to laptop early and was ready. Got a hold on sit tight message from Ticketmaster. Then tried to sign on from phone. First got same hold message but then got in on my phone, and got 2 tickets. Meanwhile at 10:04 Ticketmaster on my laptop said the show is sold out

You may want to check again, I’m seeing tickets available

I got them on my phone from Ticketmaster but for some weird reason, Ticketmaster on my laptop told me they were gone. Strange.

Album of the year

the real magic happens when they're in that middle gear: "Your Side", the title track, the last few minutes of
"2am".

Agreed. Those are my favourites. 2am is astonishing.

doesn't quite all live up to "silence is golden" but it's still very good

"2am" is really wonderful

The pitchfork review is the variety that focuses mainly on the lyrics (though not exclusively).
Which reminded me how much I wish they'd vary things a bit more, and not make every song a relationship metaphor.

"silence is golden"?

Whoa, Silence Is Golden is totally wonderful, can see why everyone was hyped if this was the first single

Ended up being easily my favourite thing on the album, mind

Well, that and the Head In The Clouds/Best Left centrepiece

i think i am too depressed to listen to the beths. i just gave the new one a good car listens and i feel like i'm 10000 planets away from where it takes place. i don't think it's them, i think i just don't want to hear this kind of music and can't relate to anything. it sounds like it should be the hit music playing in the background of a show about popular young adults

i think, in particular, the "some things are best left to rot" harmonies early on in the chorus of "best left" hit me in a really incompatible place this morning. it was very unwelcome, and felt very much like a late 90s christian band for that moment, which caused me to involuntarily shut the music off and roll down the windows. it smelled like hot tarpits outside, so i rolled the windows back up and drove home in silence after that.

i don't actually think the beths resemble a contemporary christian band, and i don't really know much about that kind of music other than what i heard from passing cars while i was doing laps in the hot tarpits back in the late 90s. this is a sweeping ignorant statement, but maybe the problem with christian music is that they can't let themselves be wrong

Agree that the "some things are best left to rot" shout-along feels like a forced crossover attempt to some other genre that I don't listen to.

But I'm finding a majority of the new songs getting stuck in my head just as much as the debut... when you know, you know.

the best stuff cuts its own swathe but there's slightly still too much of a reliance on cliched chord progressions at times imo

xps On Pitchfork lyrics/breakup focus. Hasn't Elizabeth and the tall fella been together a long while?

I'm pleased to see some less than glowing reactions. I just can't with this band... The grating harmonies, obvious chord progressions (bingo, imago) and dull lyrics rub me the wrong way. I feel like a bad Kiwi every time I hate on The Beths but seriously, I don't see the appeal.

And as for those suggesting AOTY for a catchy but soulless power pop group... in 2022? You've got to be kidding me. To be fair I've only listened to the singles, but not enough has changed to make me like them any better. They still sound like a high school rock band (albeit quite a good one) who just never moved on.

The Weezer comparisons up thread aren't entirely inapt, given Weezer just ripped off The Cars, who were huge in Aotearoa New Zealand, and surely must have influenced The Beths' songwriting. The Cars would have been everywhere on the radio when they were growing up, if their parents listened to one of the rock stations like Radio Hauraki. For some reason our tiny little colonised nation just really loves power pop, and I find it infuriating. (That said, The Cars' first record slays.)

Ok rant over. As you were...

they write good songs and play them very well