CD Odyssey Disc 1879: The Beths

This next record landed at #8 of my favourite records of 2022. If you’d like to see the full list, you can do so here.

Disc 1879 is… Expert in a Dying Field

Artist: The Beths

Year of Release: 2022

What’s up with the Cover? A Yellowtail Amberjack or Haku. I do not know this because I am an expert in a dying field, I know this because of the Internet, which, unfortunately, can make anyone appear to be an expert. Emphasis on that word ‘appear’.

I sometimes feel like an expert in a dying field because of all the old Roman writers I read (I am currently reading Suetonius’ “Twelve Caesars”) but then I remember – nope, there are actual experts in that. I’m just reading a book.

Anyway, if you like fish, this cover has one.

How I Came To Know It: I was a fan of the Beths previous record, 2020’s “Jump Rope Gazers” (reviewed back at Disc 1443) and decided to give their follow up a shot.

How It Stacks Up: I have three albums by the Beths, and while I’m still getting to know their latest (2025’s “Straight Line Was a Lie”) for now, I’m putting “Expert in a Dying Field” at #1.

Ratings: 4 stars

There’s nothing more rare and beautiful than a band that just gets better with age. The Beths were already a band whose blend of frenetic indie pop and disaffected garage band sound had me captivated, but on their third studio album, “Expert in a Dying Field” they take their songwriting to new heights.

Despite this record finishing in my top 10 of 2022, when I first heard it this week my initial reaction was hesitant. There was a lot going on. The production was dense, with a lot of bang n’ clang of the sort that usually puts me off. However, the Beths are proof positive that a lot can be going on in the arrangement, and it can still be good when done well.

It didn’t take long for this record to remind me why I liked it so much three years ago. Everything I liked about 2020’s “Jump Rope Gazers” is present, but with a bit more polish and care applied.

When a band has a post punk sensibility, that extra polish can sometimes strip a band of the energy that makes them good in the first place. No risk of that on “Experts…” which stays out in front of the beat on most songs, leaving you breathless and eager for whatever comes next.

Elizabeth Stokes’ vocals remain a cornerstone of the band’s success. She can alternate between a slightly flat “who cares” tone of alternative rock and the sweetest pop icon you can imagine. Is she going to slap you or blow you a kiss? The answer is yes.

Musically this record is also a step up. While Stokes vocals could carry the load alone, the Beths are a tight band, and despite the fast tempo and saturated nature of many of these songs, they never sound muddy. The mix is very even across all the players, letting you appreciate the growl of the guitar, snap of the drum, or undercurrent of the bass with equal joy. Set your mind to follow whatever appeals, and you’ll like where the journey takes you.

Buried in all the forward lean and reverb the lyrics have an emotional frailty that draws you in. Sometimes it expresses itself dark and distressed (“some things are best left to rot” – from Best Left) but is just as likely to be vulnerable (“still only knees deep/I’ll never be brave like you” – from Knees Deep) or just downright unapologetically romantic:

“But here I go again
Mixing drinks and messages
So I'll say it plain
I just
I want to see you
I want to hear you say
Don't cry
I'm on the next flight
To be by your side”

     -      Your Side

For all the plain beauty in the words, these are songs that say plenty without my ever paying much attention to the lyrics at all. The experience was multilayered, well-balanced and fascinating through whatever facet you approached it.

Best tracks: Expert in a Dying Field, Knees Deep, Silence is Golden, Your Side, Best Left, When You Know You Know, A Passing Rain

The Best Albums of 2022

I often load my best of albums list into the introduction to a regular review, but I’m going to break with tradition this year and give it an entry all its own. This year will also have the excitement of links to songs so you can have an immediate sampling of just what I’m so damned excited about.

If you like it, please check out the artist’s entire record, and if you like that, please buy it. That’s how artists get paid. Or stream it a whole bunch of times. That also works.

I listened to an untold number of records released in 2022 and found 80 of them worth buying. Of those I have successfully bought 66 (still searching for the rest) and gotten rid of 4 (errors). Still on the hunt for 14 more, some of which made the list regardless.

After considerable soul searching, here is the best of the best. I reserve the right to change my mind as I dig into each of these (and others) deeper, but for now, this is it. For those records I’ve already reviewed, I’ve embedded a link:

10 Ghost – Impera (reviewed at Disc 1592)

• Hard rock/metal from Sweden, Ghost has long enjoyed pretending they really love Satan, but don’t be concerned. It is just pretend.Here’s a track about their favourite subject called “Call Me Little Sunshine”. 

9 Julia Jacklin – Pre Pleasure

• Jacklin just keeps getting better. 2019’s Crushing was good, but I think this is even better. For the sake of balance with the previous record, let’s go with “Lydia Wears a Cross”.  

8 The Beths – Expert in a Dying Field

• More great music from the Beths. Here’s the title track as a sampler: 

7 Danger Mouse and Black Thoughts – Cheat Codes

• I find Danger Mouse hit and miss but combining him with hip hop mastery of Black Thoughts and the many guest stars on this record is inspiring. Here’s one called "Strangers" with some Run the Jewels guest starring.

6 Craig Finn – A Legacy of Rentals

• If you like the band The Hold Steady you’ll already know its lead singer Craig Finn. If you like that, I think you’ll like this just as much. I liked it even more, but you have to be OK with listening to the lyrics, because Finn tells a hell of a story, but you gotta pay attention. Here’s "The Amarillo Kid". 

5 Dropkick Murphys – This Machine Still Kills Fascists

• Woody Guthrie lyrics have been set to music by Wilco and Billy Bragg previously, and the latest collaboration is with the Dropkick Murphys. I think it may be the best yet. Here’s “The Last One”. 

4 Kevin Morby – This is a Photograph

• Just an all-around great record that is half chill, half-anxiety, all awesome. All the tracks are good, but I’m picking this one because I like the tone of the banjo and it features Erin Rae, who I also discovered this year. Her 2022 album is Lighten Up and it is good, even though it didn’t make this list. Here’s “Bittersweet”.

3 Mattiel – Georgia Gothic

• Mattiel’s 2019 album Satis Factory is one of my favourite records of all time. Georgia Gothic is good enough for #3 in 2022. Here’s “On the Run”.

2 Ezra Furman – All of Us Flames

• Brilliant, anthemic, and emotionally overwhelming, Furman is a wave you want to both catch and have crash over you. Here’s “Forever in Sunset".

1 Grace Cummings – Storm Queen (reviewed at Disc 1573)

• Listening to Grace Cummings is like being transfixed by the keening of a ghost as she warbles her fell and beautiful secrets to you from the underworld. Here’s “Up in Flames”:  I also strongly recommend “Heaven” if for no other reason than the arresting quality of Cummings eyes as she stares right at you in the video.

Honourable Mention – all great, but I could only pick 10. Here are 5 more in no particular order in the event you want even more great music to choose from 2022:

• Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway – Crooked Tree; CMAT – If My Wife New I’d Be Dead; Ethel Cain – Preacher’s Daughter; Wet Leg – Self-Titled; Angel Olsen – Big Time

CD Odyssey Disc 1443: The Beths

My music discovery for the week is a metal band called Eternal Champion. They are awesome, but the dice decide what album I review next and it has chosen…indie pop. Here is some.

Disc 1443 is…. Jump Rope Gazers

Artist: The Beths

Year of Release: 2020

What’s up with the Cover?  This looks like some cursed relic brought back from the lost tomb of dread Cthulhu. I like to think it binds the taker with a disturbing and faceless doppelganger who appears before you every time you pass your reflection to manifest and kill your loved ones, before returning to the depths of the mirror when the policy come calling for your alibi. As a basis for a horror story, that’s good stuff. As an album cover, it is not the greatest. Good thing for you I was here to provide context.

How I Came To Know It: I read a couple of reviews. I wasn’t sure about the Beths, as their previous album was good, but didn’t grab me enough to buy it. This time they won me over.

How It Stacks Up: I only have one Beths album, so it can’t stack up.

Ratings: 3 stars

Who ordered the indie pop…again? Yeah, that was me. In recent years I’ve become a sucker for a certain sound. Surfer reverb, pop sensibilities and a dash of punk rebellion, ideally fronted by a woman with a melancholy delivery. Welcome straight from far away New Zealand - the Beths! Latest band to feed this obsession.

In my defence, I only buy the good records that meet this description. It all starts with lead singer Elizabeth Stokes. Her vocals have a combination of eighties pop sweetness and the disaffected, slightly flat delivery of nineties pop. She’s also got a compelling falsetto which she deploys just enough to show it off, but not so much it gets tiresome.

The band is solid, particularly drummer Tristan Deck, who has a bit of a later-days Police vibe. Like a jazz drummer being forced at gunpoint to play rock and roll. The guitar has a reverb that is somewhere between sixties surfer reverb and eighties Goth. Put it all together and it sounds like a lot of what I imagine would be good for the radio, if the radio were five times better than it is.

The music has a bit of a wall of sound that takes some close attention to separate, but it is worth the effort. Because of this I liked it more on headphones walking home than in my car. My car stereo is amazing, but there is something intimate and insulated about the record that just needs to be close to your ear.

The album’s opening track, “I’m Not Getting Excited” is the Beths at their most punk. A rock riff flails away frantically, with Stokes singing in both chest and head voice as she holds down the melodic structure so the guitar can just bang away and suggest polite slam-dancing, should the occasion warrant it.

The album calms down from there, causing a few people I knew to say the first track is the only good one. Those people are manifestly wrong. They are also likely to say the band's previous release (and critical darling) "Future Me Hates Me" is the better album. This is also wrong, although I'll grant you it is a matter of taste and that "Future Me Hates Me" is a great title for a record. But I digress...

What I mean to say, is the whole record is solid, and them cutting to a more surf pop sound for the rest of the record is only a problem if you don’t like that. As noted above, I do.

In particular, the title track is lovely, and would be at home on a mid-nineties teen romantic comedy. The Beths, like a lot of modern bands, are a blend of a lot of eras – the result of easy access to any song they feel like listening to. People of my vintage were stuck with our own records, or – when they visited – our friends’. It is a glorious time for music.

Later in the record, “You Are a Beam of Light” strips things down until you almost think it is contemporary folk (it’s not, but it’s adjacent). With the light picking pattern and introspective feel, it feels a far cry from “I’m Not Getting Excited” but the Beths walk you down through tunes that get you there naturally.

The Beths did not crack my recently published top 15 albums from 2020, but they easily could have. They are definitely top 25.

Best tracks: I’m Not Getting Excited, Dying to Believe, Jump Rope Gazers, Out of Sight