Daniel Brabban
I’m a journalist from the North East currently exiled in Leeds. You can find me playing bass in the band ‘Hardware’ and having pints at the brude. Ha’way the Lads.
The Beths’ latest album will be releasing 29th August with new single ‘No Joy‘ out now
New Zealand Quartet The Beths have announced their new album ‘Straight Line Was a Lie’ is set to be released on August 29th via label ‘ANTI-’. The album follows 2022’s critically acclaimed album ‘Expert in a Dying Field’. Lead singer Elizabeth Stokes says the lengthy gap between albums is due to her struggles with writer’s block, brought about by a new regimen of SSRIs.
Stokes explains this difficulty saying, “I was kind of dealing with a new brain, and I feel like I write very instinctually. It was kind of like my instincts were just a little different, they weren’t as panicky.”
This new reality is reflected in new single ‘No Joy’ out now, with its repeated chorus refrain of ‘No Joy’ expressing the emotional numbness brought on by antidepressants, balanced by The Beths‘ usual style of insightful slacker pop.
The album’s unconventional writing process is reflected in its diverse range of influences, with Stokes and guitarist Jonathan Pearce reading Stephen King’s classic ‘On Writing’, re-visiting Akira Kurosawa Criterion classics as well as listening to Drive-By Truckers, The Go-Go’s and Olivia Rogrigo. This allowed Stokes’ to deconstruct her own writing style resulting in what The Beths describe as their “most sharply observant, truthful, and poetic” album to date.
You can catch The Beths on tour across the UK and Ireland this September in support of ‘Straight Line Was a Lie’.
Listen to ‘No Joy‘ here:
Catch The Beths at the following:
Wed. Sept 17th – Dublin, IE @ Button Factory
Thu. Sept 18th – Dublin, IE @ Button Factory [SOLD OUT]
Sat. Sept 20th – Manchester, UK @ Albert Hall
Sun. Sept 21st – Glasgow, UK @ SWG3 TV Studio
Mon. Sept 22nd – Leeds, UK @ Project House
Wed. Sept 24th – Bristol, UK @ O2 Academy
Thu. Sept 25th – Birmingham, UK @ XOYO
Fri. Sept 26th – London, UK @ Roundhouse
Sat. Sept 27th – Brighton, UK @ CHALK