ALBUM REVIEW – THE BETHS – STRAIGHT LINE WAS A LIE
- Rick E
- Sep 8
- 4 min read
WORDS RICK E
The Beths
Straight Line Was A Lie
Out Now via ANTI-
Truth be told - I'm not usually the type of individual you would send to review indie rock records. Give me a slab of Norwegian black metal or some properly crushing doom any day of the week, and I will happily dissect it for you with the enthusiasm of a pathologist with a fresh corpse. But here's the thing about The Beths' fourth full-length offering, "Straight Line Was A Lie" – it's got more bite, more genuine emotional heft, and frankly more balls than half the so-called "heavy" records that have crossed my desk this year.
This merry band of melody merchants have crafted something genuinely special here, and now that I have fully digested, I absolutely concede that this record has lodged itself so firmly in my brain like a particularly stubborn earworm. It's not just the hooks – though bloody hell, there are enough of them to stock a decent-sized tackle shop – it's the way they have managed to package existential dread and modern anxiety into these deceptively breezy pop confections.
The opening track hits you like a sugar rush laced with amphetamines. Stokes' voice – equal parts Dolores O'Riordan's ethereal float and Kim Deal's knowing sneer – delivers lines that cut straight through the jangly guitar work like a scalpel through tissue paper. It's power pop in the truest sense, but there is something wonderfully subversive lurking beneath all that shimmer and shine.
Cementing the album’s aharmonic theme is a loopy analog clock design by Lily Paris West, who also provided the artwork for 2022’s Expert In A Dying Field. West’s “wonky clock” plays right into The Beths’ notion of nonlinear progression and the machine-like ways in which bodies work (or don’t, as in Stokes’ case, amidst physical and mental health struggles). “The clock is always back in the same place, it's kind of a broken machine as well,” Stokes says. “The body and brain are these complex, complicated machines, ever-changing. Even when functioning in a less-than-optimal state, they're still amazing. But I’m still prone to completely dismiss that and see only the worst.
The genius of The Beths lies in their ability to wrap these weighty themes in music that is genuinely fun to listen to. There's a track midway through – and I won't spoil it by naming it – that deals with the crushing banality of modern existence, the way we're all just hamsters on wheels convinced we're making progress. It should be depressing as hell, but instead it is an absolute banger that will have you singing along before you've even processed what you're singing about
But let's talk about the songs themselves, because that's where this record truly lives or dies. The title track "Straight Line Was A Lie" is perhaps the most honest three and a half minutes of music you will hear this year. Lyrically, Stokes is operating on another level entirely. She's writing about depression, anxiety, relationship breakdown, creative frustration – all the usual indie rock territory – but she's doing it with a precision and honesty that cuts through the usual metaphorical façade.
This directness could come across as clinical or cold, but Stokes has this remarkable ability to inject vulnerability into even the most straightforward statements. There is a humanity in her voice that makes even the most specific personal details feel universal. We've all been there, in those moments of chemical imbalance and existential questioning, and she's just brave enough to sing about it without dressing it up in poetry.
What is perhaps most impressive about "Straight Line Was A Lie" is how it manages to be both deeply personal and broadly relatable. These are songs about very specific moments and feelings, but they tap into something universal about the experience of being a functioning adult in an increasingly dysfunctional world. It's the kind of record that makes you feel less alone, which is no small achievement in these fractured times.
There's no posturing here, no attempt to seem cooler or more knowing than the audience. The Beths wear their influences openly – you can hear bits of The Pixies, Pavement, even some classic power pop like Big Star – but they are not cosplaying as their heroes. They are taking those influences and using them to say something genuinely new and genuinely their own.
The more I have played this, the more I have come to appreciate its subtle complexities. These aren't simple three-chord pop songs dressed up with clever lyrics – there's real sophistication in the arrangement and composition work. But it's sophistication that never gets in the way of the emotional impact, never makes you feel like you need a music degree to appreciate what is happening.
The Beths have crafted something genuinely special here, and I suspect we will still be talking about this record long after most of 2025's other offerings have been forgotten. Sometimes you don't need to reinvent the wheel – sometimes you just need to build a better one, and that's exactly what The Beths have done.
4/5
STRAIGHT LINE WAS A LIE – FULL TRACK LIST
1. Straight Line Was A Lie
2. Mosquitoes
3. No Joy
4. Metal
5. Mother, Pray For Me
6. Til My Heart Stops
7. Take
8. Roundabout
9. Ark Of The Covenant
10. Best Laid Plans
FOLLOW THE BETHS
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