From the perhaps-unlikely origins of a jazz school and a swing band, Kiwi quartet The Beths have shot to immediate recognition outside of their native New Zealand on the strength of two fantastic albums. They’ve become something of a paragon of what the rather-wide genre known as indie-pop can achieve, emerging fully-formed after their Warm Blood EP with Future Me Hates Me, an album that comes off not as the full-length debut of a band only just reaching the wider world, but rather as a supremely well-honed statement about their songwriting capabilities.
In trying to describe The Beths’ sound, one realizes that they actually are performing a very delicate balancing act: marrying upbeat, typically-bright instrumentals with guitarist and vocalist Elizabeth Stokes’ impassioned lyrics that color in a map of complex, anxious emotions inside herself. It doesn’t really sink in until maybe the second or third listen, peeling off the layers of gorgeous sound and often lyrical humor, for it to really register Stokes is bringing to bear some truly fraught emotions of rejection, scorn, and longing, often with a deceptively pointed edge.
‘Uptown Girl’, one of their fastest, hardest-driving songs, is a perfect example of this. It casts Stokes as the jilted friend or partner going out to “drink the whole town dry / put poison in my wine / and hope that you’re the one who dies”. At its core, it’s a deeply hostile sentiment, equally venomous to Stokes’ narrator and the object of her ire. But one would be forgiven for not noticing at first blush, as the vocal harmonies in the verse and Stokes’ own high-flying delivery of that chorus, followed by a punchy, almost coy guitar stinger, cloak the dagger very well.
The audience’s first glimpse of Stokes at the band’s Connecticut show actually comes in the form of a cardboard cutout sitting in as the unofficial sixth member of the opening act Lunar Vacation. There’s three more, one for each of The Beths’ members, sitting near the merch table, cheekily substituting for the memory of post-show interaction that isn’t necessarily the best idea in the current health climate – The Beths already rescheduled several stops on their tour, including this date in New Haven. When they take the stage as their real, three-dimensional selves, they’re backed by a large diorama in the shape of multiple birds, and you can see in the faces of each member of the band that they’ve been waiting to play live again for some time and are relishing the opportunity to do so.
The year 2020, somehow both ages ago and also just yesterday, saw the band release their second LP, Jump Rope Gazers, and it features Stokes once again at her lyrical best. ‘Mars, the God of War’ stands out as one of the high points of the new record, a picture of Stokes as she oscillates between conflicting impulses of wishing an ex well or telling them, using her phone or computer as a weapon, to just go to hell. Equally sharp as her lyrics, though, is the cast of players who form the rest of The Beths – guitarist Jonathan Pearce, bassist Ben Sinclair, and drummer Tristan Deck, who along with Stokes on guitar form the soundscapes that these narratives play out in. All trained musicians, the songs they build together are so tightly-written and note-perfect that it’s almost easy to take for granted, recalling a similar sensation one may get listening to bands like The National – none of the individual parts are ever showy or self-indulgent, but their synthesis amounts to nothing short of excellence.
The night sees a healthy mix of songs from both Jump Rope Gazers and Future Me Hates Me, and tantalizingly the band tosses in a pair of new tracks as well, ‘A Real Thing’ which was recently released as a single, and ‘When You Know, You Know’ which thus far has only appeared as demo exclusively on cassette tape. It seems that the band’s future is just as exciting as its history so far, but as for the songs that the audience has been listening to for years, the night has become a full-on singalong by the time the main set reaches the point of ‘Little Death’, which encapsulates the feeling of a new relationship by detailing, with a heavy focus on physical sensation, the strength of the pull between Stokes and someone with whom she’s become smitten. When the band returns from their brief encore break, they play ‘River Run: Lvl 1’ which approaches a much more somber feeling from the same experiential angle as distraction fails, and speech turns to tears behind a lump in her throat. This sort of writing invariably makes things feel all the more personal, anchoring Stokes’ words in a holistic sensory experience. But true to their character, ‘River Run’ features one of the band’s bounciest choruses, ever subverting expectations.
With new music taking form for what appears to be another release on the horizon, it’s interesting to ponder where that tendency might take them next as Stokes continues to layout life’s uncertainties in the unique, specific way only she can. As for ‘A Real Thing’, it finds itself as one of the more optimistic Beths tunes, acknowledging the “sinister, silly season” we find ourselves in — but hoping to make something meaningful in spite of it all.
Review and Photos by Collin Heroux
