The Beths

The indie rock outfit the Beths from New Zealand, led by principal songwriter Elizabeth Stokes on vocals and guitar, craft their spontaneous and wryly self-effacing sound through vigorous guitar-driven riffs, catchy melodic lines, and layered vocal harmonies. After establishing a following through energetic performances, the group issued their debut full-length Future Me Hates Me during 2018. Ear-catching tracks drawn from that record and its successor Jump Rope Gazers appeared on the 2021 concert recording Auckland, New Zealand, 2020. While touring, the quartet finished their third album, the uneasy Expert in a Dying Field from 2022, at a Los Angeles facility, and it topped the domestic album rankings in New Zealand.

Elizabeth Stokes attended secondary school alongside guitarist Jonathan Pearce before the pair encountered bassist Benjamin Sinclair and drummer Ivan Luketina-Johnston during jazz studies at the University of Auckland. The Beths came together as these acquaintances jammed and rediscovered the punk-pop sounds from their younger days, leading to a positive outcome that prompted their initial release, the Pearce-helmed Warm Blood EP in 2016. Their dynamic live performances soon earned acclaim throughout Australia and New Zealand, prompting Carpark Records to distribute the EP globally in 2018—the year that also saw the Pearce-produced debut album Future Me Hates Me arrive via the same label while retaining the raw, gritty quality and immediate appeal of their prior material.

Support tours for acts like Death Cab for Cutie, the Breeders, and Pixies opened up after the first album's success. Drumming duties shifted to Tristan Deck in place of Luketina-Johnston. Once an eighteen-month touring stretch concluded, the members isolated themselves to compose and capture their follow-up. Jump Rope Gazers maintained the melodic pull without compromise when issued by Carpark in 2020 under Pearce's production. Selections from the initial pair of studio efforts filled the thirteen-song live set Auckland, New Zealand, 2020 released the next year. Development of material for album number three was underway when a four-month nationwide lockdown hit New Zealand amid the COVID-19 crisis toward the end of 2021. The band resumed activities in February with American dates that incorporated a three-day mixing period in Los Angeles, finalizing tracks primarily laid down at Pearce's Auckland space and supplemented with on-the-road recordings. The resulting twelve-track collection Expert in a Dying Field, marked by its restless tone, came out in September 2022 and marked their initial number-one placement at home. "Watching the Credits" emerged as a single the subsequent year.