To be an expert in something is a form of sacrifice. To commit years poring over the smallest of details, learning the distinction between things, coming to understand every nuance and contradiction of a subject with such care and attention they almost become a part of you. To be an expert in a dying field is therefore a uniquely precarious position. Not only is all that accumulated knowledge at risk, all that time potentially wasted, but some part of yourself is threatened too. Because even if you are not dragged down as the ship sinks, what point is there bobbing on the surface, unmoored from everything you knew?
Such a situation is central to Expert In A Dying Field, the latest album The Beths. “How does it feel / To be an expert in a dying field?” asks lead Elizabeth Stokes in the opener and title track, speaking from the aftermath of a relationship where years of effort and learning have lost their purpose. The beginning of a more general exploration of the idea of moving on, even when those intimate details recorded and memorised still feel so pressing. Even while the ghosts remain.
Hours of phrases I’ve memorized
Thousands of lines on the page
All of my notes in a desolate pile
I haven’t touched in an age
The rise of the Aotearoa band has been something to behold. The four-piece—Stokes (guitar, vocals), Jonathan Pearce (guitar), Benjamin Sinclair (bass), and Tristan Deck (drums)—have won hearts and minds around the world since announcing themselves with debut EP Warm Blood back in 2016. Expert In A Dying Field is The Beths third LP (following 2018’s Future Hates Me and 2020’s Jump Rope Gazers) and represents another step towards perfecting their characteristic blend of pop hooks, punk scuzz and dynamic indie rock, all tied together by Stokes’s earnest and accomplished writing.
This might be The Beths’ biggest strength. How they manage to make awkward post-relationship angst feel somehow affirming, like an intravenous shot of “things will be okay” positivity regardless of whether Stokes’s lyrics share the same optimism. It has something to do with the songs’ candid nature, leaving nothing guarded or muddied by shame, a kind of open-heartedness that keeps things on a knife edge, continues to see possibility and wonder even in the deadest of dead ends.
Such a dynamic energy marks Expert In A Dying Field. Because for all the authentic emotion and reflection, this is a record written with live performance in mind. Full of small moments that spark with inexplicable electricity, suffused with joy despite its difficult subject matter. A collection of songs that are supposed to be fun, both for the audience to listen to and, crucially, for the band to play. Resulting in a record which sounds, above all, like a group of friends doing what they love.
‘Your Side’ has the shiny unreality of a doe-eyed daydream, Stokes imagining an ex- dropping everything to rush to her (“don’t cry, I’m on the next flight, to be by your side”), when in reality she is “mixing drinks and messages” alone. ‘Knees Deep’ is an upbeat and catchy pop song about coming to terms with not being fearless. “The shame, I wish that I was brave enough to dive in,” Stokes sings during the chorus, “but I nevеr have been and never will be / I’m coming in hot then freezing completely.” Closer ‘2am’ on the other hand is the record’s sole slow-burner, sharing all the late-night quiet of its title. But no matter the changes of shade and tone, this vigour shines through.
The result is a kind of transubstantiation. Doubt and sadness offered up with such sincere passion they are somehow transformed into a form of empathy. Across the record, Stokes documents a whole host of losses and their accompanying wounds. Be it suffering the white noise of anxiety (‘Silence is Golden’), praying on her knees (‘Head in the Clouds’) or crying in the rain (‘When You Know You Know’). But the experiences are processed through the band’s irrepressible energy. The Beths magic formula. A way to transform the personal into the universal. Trauma into a reason to love and live.
Expert In A Dying Field is out now via Carpark Records. Get it in a variety of formats from the Carpark Records Bandcamp page.
