(Credits: Far Out / Frances Carter)
It can sometimes be difficult to write about The Beths.
Few bands remind me of the whole ‘writing about music is like dancing about architecture’ quip more because, quite simply, it often feels like there’s little else to say other than just how spectacular they are as a group. On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be a grand unifying theme to their work. No gobby frontman to spin quotes out of. No defining narrative to speak of. They just do not need them to remain as compelling as they are, unlike many bands around them who can’t maintain their appeal without bells, whistles and gimmickry.
I’m not even saying that in some holier-than-thou way. I love gimmicks, I love a narrative, I love when bands carry themselves like a full-on movement, and not only as a music journalist where those types of bands are also my very lifeblood, but also as a fan of music. I wouldn’t love David Bowie, My Chemical Romance and The White Stripes as much as I do if I thought that pop music was all about the music and everything else is a distraction at best, and a cash-in at worst.
Yet I feel compelled to write about The Beths. Without any of those aspects (at least on the surface), they are one of the best rock bands around, and it’s not even close. My only proof of this comes from wildly gesticulating at their four absolutely flawless albums, and if someone doesn’t see it, gesticulating harder.
Their sparky power-pop began life as a pop-punky thrash that never scrimped on timeless, full-hearted melodies. There’ll be a school of thought that cherishes their 2018 debut Future Hates Me and 2020’s Jump Rope Gazers as pinnacles to never be bettered, and it’s a difficult one to argue with.
Both of those records have a raucous, bright-eyed charm to them, but something changed with their 2022 masterpiece Expert in a Dying Field. Oftentimes, maturity is anathema to a rock band, especially one as innocent and full of life as The Beths. Dying Field was the opposite, and maturity was the making of them. Holding onto everything that made them magical, while broadening their horizons to make music that was even more expansive and spectacular. I wondered where they could go next, the cynic in me doubting they could go up from here. Then, somehow, they did.
What makes ‘Metal’ one of the best songs by The Beths?
Who knew that the next step The Beths would take would be to become The Cure?! Sweeping in on ‘In Between Days’-esque strummed acoustic guitars and a bass hook plucked straight from the Simon Gallup playbook, ‘Metal’ showed this most consistent of bands evolving in all the right ways. Going from a scrappy, talented bunch of pop-punkers to a proper, grown-up rock band, one with those teenage kicks still in their locker but able to mix it up with the best of them.
However, what makes ‘Metal’ so engaging isn’t just the sound, it’s the words too. Frontwoman and songwriter Elizabeth Stokes has always been a great lyricist, but ‘Metal’ sees her attempt something truly daring. The album that ‘Metal’ is pre-empting, Straight Line Was a Lie, was written in the midst of Stokes being diagnosed with Graves’ disease. This autoimmune condition causes your body to create too much thyroid hormone, wreaking havoc on your mental and physical health.
It’s the kind of condition that would justify an album of songs raging at the condition and the way it can slow your entire life down to a crawl. Yet ‘Metal’ is something different and profound. Stokes looks at her body as an ecosystem. A complex, incalculably precious yet bafflingly tough stronghold of her very personhood that can withstand so much, yet the slightest imbalance can throw it for a loop. “I’m a collaboration / Bacteria, carbon and light,” she sings, making genuine poetry out of the same basic body we all share, “A florid orchestration / A recipe of fortune and time”.
‘Metal’ is a miracle, yet one that The Beths have spent a career making. They take a look at life and translate its undeniable beauty into music that matches it. I take a listen to their music and hope I can translate at least a fraction of its undeniable beauty into words. If not, I can at least gesticulate wildly and hope for the best.
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