Expert In A Dying Field. The Beths

The impression The Beths made on me with the its single and opening song of its previous album, 'Jump Rope Gazers', it will never be able to repeat. Everytime I hear the song start, it still tingles down my spine. How can a band ever top that? It can't. The only thing to do is to come up with an even greater album as a whole. And it is here. The Beths fully deliver. Expert In A Dying Field is a great album and with 'Silence Is Golden' the band comes very close to 'I'm Not Getting Excited'.

The Beths is another band from New Zealand. This time I was allerted to them for the first time by Erwin Zijleman. Because of his review of 'Future Me Hates Me' I started to listen to the album and within a few songs I had heard enough. One of these days I'm going to have to do a retry of course. Why I haven't? Time is a restraint here with all the music coming in a daily basis.

Expert In A Dying Field contains everything that makes The Beths a perfect band. With Elizabeth Stokes the band has a songwriter that delivers and a singer who hovers between slacker and presence in a totally convincing way. The band has a lead guitarist who dares to derail his solo's without going off the rails. Hearing Jonathan Pearce's solo's is believing. Where is he going? Where does this wind up? In the end always in the right note but a lot of them in between are quite on the edge of the options open to him if not beyond. Pearce is like Roadrunner and certainly no Wyle E. Coyote as it were. The band as a whole knows how to rock and successfully pulls of an indie rock ballad at times as well.

Since the mid 90s I'm a great fan of Veruca Salt's album 'Eight Arms To Hold You'. Here you go where The Beths are concerned. Come 2022, the conclusion may have to be drawn that I have a new standard and it is Expert In A Dying Field. Many songs on the album are sharper, go to the edge more and are less well produced, in a positive way, as in this is not a "huge" album, which Veruca Salt's was.

What I truly like as well, are the harmony vocals on the album. All The Beths' members sing with Elizabeth Stokes, including harmonising with herself, giving the album an extra level of quality. With each listening session there are other details for me to discover.

Musically The Beths must be familiar with the alternative rock bands coming out of Boston around 1990. The Lemonheads, Buffalo Tom and such. Fans of these bands will find something of their liking here. For me The Beths simply go way beyond these bands. The band and its members add a level of enthusiasm to the music, something upbeat and plain fun. When I've listened to this album I always wind up with a smile on my face. Besides being totally pleased in a general way. It looks like I have added another band to my list of top bands.

Wout de Natris.

You can listen to and order Expert In A Dying Field here:

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