Like most genres, power-pop comes in many flavors, but my favorite examples of it tend to share the same set of characteristics: punchy guitar riffs, clever vocal harmonies, broad emotional range, and lyrics that either reveal meaningful truths, or tell engaging stories, or both.<\/p>\n
New Zealand\u2019s The Beths hit all of these marks on their third album Expert In A Dying Field<\/i>, whose title suggests another major asset for this listener: that classic Kiwi deadpan. It\u2019s humor served up with generous helpings of self-deprecation, irony, and melancholy, the kind that makes you ponder with a wistful smile. <\/p>\n
The opening title track sets the tone, a punchy number that feels a little bit like Courtney Barnett fronting Big Star, a high compliment indeed. Frontwoman\/songwriter Elizabeth Stokes sings with piercing tenderness\u2014and wry reflection\u2014of realizing a love is over, but not being able to let go, as bandmates Jonathan Pearce (guitar, vocals, keys, production), Benjamin Sinclair (bass, vocals), and Tristan Deck (drums, vocals) push the song from crescendo to crescendo.<\/p>\n
The propulsive \u201cKnees Deep\u201d follows, contrasting a loved one\u2019s courage to her own anxiety, to deliciously crunchy guitar over an urgent rhythm section. The same applies on the even faster-paced \u201cSilence Is Golden,\u201d whose careening feel reminds of early Jimmy Eat World, buzzing with a manic energy. Contrast arrives with \u201cYour Side,\u201d a jangly charmer full of yearning for a lover who\u2019s gone away. <\/p>\n
The brief \u201cI Want To Listen\u201d manages to sound both tart and reflective as its overwhelmed narrator sorts through the sprawling mess of her life. Then \u201cHead In The Clouds\u201d barges in with a big, anthemic sound, pumping rhythm section and crunchy guitars topped with Stokes\u2019 urgent lead vocals and the band\u2019s soaring harmonies on this might-be-time-to-break-up relationship reassessment. How that question was answered is strongly implied by \u201cBest Left,\u201d whose repeating chorus goes \u201cSome things are best left to rot\u201d; then they shake it off and move forward on the tumbling, propulsive \u201cChange In The Weather.\u201d <\/p>\n
The final third of the album loses none of the achieved momentum. \u201cWhen You Know, You Know\u201d mixes sweet vulnerability with jangly guitars and crashing drums to strong effect while offering a topic sentence for the album:<\/p>\n
But if you won’t commit to the expedition
I could go alone on a solo mission
Never seen a heart in a worse condition
Pinning all my hopes to the wrong pincushion<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cA Passing Rain\u201d moves back and forth between laid-back verses and aggressive choruses, again feeling a bit Jimmy Eat World in its shifting moods and textures. Penultimate track \u201cI Told You That I Was Afraid\u201d is quintessential Beths, setting a song about being riddled with self-doubt to surging rhythms, driving guitars and strong counterpoint harmonies on the chorus. For one final bit of contrast, closer \u201c2am\u201d is the airiest number here, turning up the melancholy and nostalgia without losing the jangle.<\/p>\n
The word that kept coming up as I moved from track to track on this album was \u201ctasty.\u201d Expert In A Dying Field<\/i> is one of those albums where the songs are like M&Ms\u2014you try one, it\u2019s great, and you immediately want another. The nice thing here is that these flavorful morsels are nourishing, too. I may be late to the game once again, but it turns out The Beths made one of my favorite power-pop albums of 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":34567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10764],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-47133","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-beths","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47133"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}