The Beths’ Fourth Album ‘Straight Line Was a Lie” is Moody, Gloomy, and Maybe One of The Band’s Best

It’s hard to be fun when you’re so worried and anxious. But, it’s still possible, as The Beths proved on the New Zealand band’s fourth LP, Straight Line Was A Lie, which dropped today. The album is The Beth’s first release through their new label, ANTI- Records, previously signed to Washington D.C.-based label Carpark Records in the United States, and also had their albums released through Rough Trade Records in the U.K. and the defunct record label, Ivy League Records, in Australia. 

It’s a more melancholic and anxious departure for the band, who have always sung about the perils of life, but in a more upbeat tone. Straight Line Was A Lie is the band’s darkest offering yet, and it really paid off.

The album’s title track “Straight Line Was A Lie” serves as a natural entry point to the album, as its first song, but it’s also a great entry point for fans. It’s the album’s most sonically energetic song, with pumping melodic electric guitars, and a chorus filled with harmonic singing. It’s also a song about how recovering from anything is never a straight line, and instead is filled with constant ups and downs.

“I thought I was getting better, but I’m back to where I started, and the straight line was a circle. Yeah, the straight line was a lie,” lead vocalist Elizabeth Stokes sings in the title track.

Straight Line Was A Lie feels more intimate than The Beth’s previous work. The songs are more stripped down, less instantly exuberant. It feels like a sadder album at times, especially on songs like the aptly-titled “No Joy.”

It’s a song about looking at the downside, of well, everything, and having a lack of feeling anything, especially joy. 

“Wanna feel but I am failing, facial expression wooden, wanted to cry, but I couldn’t,” Stokes sings on the song.

Despite its lyrical contents, “No Joy” is one of the most fun songs on the album, sonically. It’s filled with an infectious drumbeat, peppy guitars throughout the chorus and even a fun flute and recorder-filled bridge. 

One of the highlights of the album is “Mother, Pray for Me,” which Stokes wrote about her relationship to her own mother, her and her mother’s thoughts on religion. While Stokes has never strayed from writing about her own life, rarely has the band been as personal and vulnerable as they are on this song.

“I called off the search for evidence of an after. Decided I’m fine without. Forever is this right now,” Stokes sings during the song’s bridge. 

“Take” is another stellar offering on the album, a dark whirl of a song that’s about taking antidepressant medication. As well as “Ark of the Covenant,” about the fear of the future, which sounds so unlike anything The Beths have put out before, with its blazing electric guitars screaming throughout the song’s chorus.

I first came across The Beths during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Desperate to travel to New Zealand as the world was locked down, or at least just leave my house, I instead opted to just listen to music from my dream vacation country, and found the pop punk band.

Their music has always been an instant sonic mood booster, from when I was trapped indoors waiting out a pandemic, to five years later whenever I need a burst of exuberant indie pop.

Straight Line Was A Lie is no different. The album chronicles emotional highs and lows, but still comes out hopeful every so often. Even in its more melancholic songs, it’s a sonic blast.  It’s a well-crafted album, and may prove to be one of The Beths’ best. It’s filled with the indie pop energy and insightful lyrics that the band has perfectly crafted over the years, 

“Straight Line Was A Lie” is available on all streaming platforms. To catch the album live, The Beths will be on tour for the rest of the year, playing shows across the U.K. and Europe, before hopping across the pond and touring throughout the United States and Canada.

Straight Line Was A Lie is out now.