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Jul 10, 2020 Web Exclusive By Andy Von Pip

There’s little to suggest that The Beths found following up to their acclaimed breakthrough debut album Future Me Hates a daunting proposition. Indeed their second full-length release, Jump Rope Gazers, is every bit as thrilling as their debut. The Auckland quartet effortlessly combine their trademark mix of fizzing melodies and crunching guitars underpinned with deft lyrics that evoke sunshine, self-doubt, euphoria, and heartbreak.

Ironically singer and songwriter Elizabeth Stokes touches on themes that revolve around keeping in contact with people who you may be socially distanced from. Of course, the album was written before the current pandemic took hold, and yet there are lyrics and themes that do resonate with our current global situation.

Jump Rope Gazers is crammed with fizzing indie-pop tunes, and not unlike Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell or Alvvays’ Molly Rankin, Stokes has an innate talent for crafting beautiful bittersweet effervescent indie guitar pop. The Beths take the chiming indie template and energize it, infusing it with their own personality and sly wit, with lead single “Dying to Believe” being a prime example of what The Beths do best.

Title track “Jump Rope Gazers” shimmers with a yearning sense of nostalgia, whilst “Out of Sight” is about being there for somebody as Stokes promises “If your world collapses/I’ll be down in the rubble/I’d build you another.” Meanwhile, “You Are a Beam of Light” could quite easily fit on The Sundays’ classic Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. And in many ways, The Beths share an important commonality with Harriet Wheeler and co. Both artists aren’t reinventing the musical wheel, indeed there is no need to, but they have brought a fresh perspective and write music that is honest, uplifting, and comes from the heart.

Album closer “Just Shy of Sure” sees Stokes revealing her vulnerability and fragility quite beautifully as she sings “Love in memory/Was a plague that consumed me/Shifted all my priorities/Things I’d die to keep/Swept through all that I’d hope to reap/God I loved how it ruined me” and again demonstrates what a fine songwriter she is. (www.thebeths.com)

Author rating: 8/10