Having been largely unable to tour their second album, 2020’s Jump Rope Gazers, The Beths were determined to make up for lost time with its follow-up. Expert In A Dying Field was written in the mind-numbing throes of the pandemic’s peak – when the Kiwi power-pop outfit were truly pining for their return to the stage – and as a result, almost every second of the record feels tailored to be belted out in front of an audience.
You can hear it in the tasteful crunch of the riffs on ‘Head In The Clouds’, and in the warbly, almost jittery lead passage on ‘Best Left’. It’s there on the pseudopsychedelic wailing that steals the stow on the back end of ‘2am’, and in the luminous pop-punk vibe the band explore on ‘A Passing Rain’ – and, of course, in the absolute sonic calamity that is the tonguein-cheek thrash-pop there’s “a musical irony” to it, with “the tension and the loudness – a very controlled kind of chaos – coming from a place of actually wanting to be quiet and alone”.
