New Zealand’s The Beths return with their fourth (and first for new label ANTI-) album ‘Straight Line Was a Lie’. With a focus on how life, no matter how difficult or transformative it seems, has a habit of feeling like it’s taken you back to where it started. It follows Elizabeth Stokes taking medication as she lived with depression and how this affected her writing style.

To combat this, the band took inspiration from the books ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King’s, ‘How Big Things Get Done’ by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner, and ‘Working’ by Robert A. Caro. Elizabeth would then put stream-of-consciousness thoughts down on a Remington typewriter (a birthday gift from Beths bassist Benjamin Sinclair) every morning for a month, and the material was used to kickstart their most honest and vulnerable work so far.

The album opens with the rhythmic self-deprecation of the title track, a song where Elizabeth discusses how SSRI antidepressants shifted her brain with honesty and candour, the words ‘I thought I was getting better but I’m back to where I started’ a repeated refrain over the jangly hooks. She follows this by saying how ‘Every way is the wrong way’. This is followed by the more introspective ‘Mosquitoes’ that is both nostalgic – joyful trips down memory lane recall walking down dirt trails to see a beautiful waterfall – and devastating: ‘In January 23, the creek became a raging sea’. Wondering what the purpose of life is while comparing it to a natural crisis: ‘Overgrown, abandoned, I take off my shoes to cross it’.

Lead single ‘No Joy’ has a scuzzier feel with pacy drums, dirty riffs, an almost nonchalant vocal delivery and a touch of Sweet Pill in its emo stylings. ‘Mother, Pray for Me’ continues with the emo twinkle as Elizabeth delivers a heartfelt ode to a parent despite some striking differences: ‘I don’t have what you have, I don’t seek what you seek, but I’d never take it away’. There’s also encouragement to never give up and a truly devastating line about mortality: ‘Mother, are you all at sea? Battered by the wave of grief’.

‘Til My Heart Stops’ is atmospheric with new wave bass and playful wordplay – ‘I wanna ride my bike in the rain, I wanna fly a kite in a hurricane’ – but its wistful nature is wrapped in sadness: ‘I wanna dance ’til I drop’. ‘Roundabout’ returns to jangle pop territory a la Teenage Fanclub and is unashamedly romantic in its melody and lyrics: ‘I loved you then like I love you now. There’s nothing to be scared about’.

‘Best Laid Plans’ finishes the album in an explosion of art pop, all swirling guitars and talk of different gravities while Elizabeth pleads: ‘Take my money, take my hands, leave me lying with my best laid plans’.

‘Straight Line Was a Lie’ is another truthful beauty from The Beths.