What happens when you grow away from someone you know everything about?

The Beths - Expert in a Dying Field (2022) 

Album Review

Reviewer's Note: Like This Is Why and Stranger In The Alps, Expert In A Dying Field review was also released on RateYourMusic, but unlike those two, it was released first on a different platform, on a Discord channel for fans of Twenty One Pilots. Discord has a character limit, so I ended up being more succint with this review. It was written June 30th 2023, a bit less than a year after it originally released, and a few months after the release of Watching The Credits, but before the release of the deluxe version

The third from New Zealand Power Pop outfit The Beths is an energetic, bright and juvenile album. The theme of Expert In A Dying Field is that of "break up", sort of. Lyricist and vocalist/rythym Elizabeth Stokes explains that the album is about moving apart from someone, a friend, a significant other. After that separation, what remains is a bunch of information you have that you'll never use again; the person's favourite colour, what secret skills they have or even just how they look.

The songwriting in Expert In A Dying Field is incredible, Jonathan Pearce's energetic guitar work and incredible solos stand out and really stick in your head, from time to time I'll catch myself humming to a specific riff. It's obviously all very simple and all in the pentatonic major but that adds to the tone of the album: the band realizes their potential in indie comes from that rawness. That can also be easily seen in Liz's singing, she sings in a very fun tone and not taking herself too seriously. A special point for me in the album is in When You Know You Know that you can very clearly notice Liz running out of breath, it all builds a very comfortable vibe to accompany the power that album has, like playing with a very aggressive cat.

The tracklist starts with the very great mood-setting of the title track, one thing The Beths excel at is vocal composition, perhaps not going to crazy extents like Fleetwood Mac for example, but it's a pretty fun interaction of bouncing Liz with the backing vocalists in Jonathan, Benjamin and Tristan. Knees Deep features a beautiful vocal performance from Liz along with great energetic performances from the rest of the band, Tristan's pocket drumming on the album is very fitting, and at some climaxes he can fit in some cute fills. The mixing on the drums is great, on the whole instrumentation it's produced as if to sound as clean and intimate as possible.

Other great tracks to highlight are 'Head In The Clouds', 'When You Know You Know' and the ballad '2am', which is a welcome surprise seen that the whole album is very high paced and that, when the previous album 'Jump Rope Gazers' had their slower tracks it clearly didn't work as well.

Expert In A Dying Field is another one of my favourite 2022 LPs and The Beths continues to be one of the most fun bands to watch evolve their sound, and I'd be delighted to see you all experience the beauty in the simpleness of Expert In A Dying Field.

Favourite tracks: Expert In A Dying Field, Knees Deep, Head In The Clouds, Best Left, When You Know You Know, 2am

Final Score: 9/10