Artist: The Beths Album: Straight Line Was A Lie Label: Anti – Epitaph Link: https://www.thebeths.com/ Style: Pop, Pop/Rock, Alternative & Indie
The Beths is a New Zealand quartet led by Elizabeth Stokes, who sings, writes all the lyrics and composes most of the band’s songs. She is accompanied by Jonathan Pearce on guitar, Benjamin Sinclair on bass (they also provide backing vocals), and Tristan Deck on drums. In retrospect, their rise has been fairly rapid, as they have attracted public and critical interest since their first album was released in 2018. Their reputation has been reinforced by regular international tours. Straight Line Was A Lie is their fourth studio album to date.
In writing this album, the singer moves away from lyrics centered on romantic love and the relative success that can accompany it. She delivers much more intimate yet universal lyrics, relating to her doubts and, above all, her physical and mental health. The strength of this music lies in its ability to maintain a communicative joy and brightness despite its deeper themes. As on previous albums, the choruses are particularly catchy, and the melodies have the lightness and immediate freshness of pop songs that you want to listen to again and again without question.
As on previous albums, the band demonstrates its expertise in vocal and instrumental harmonies. As always, Elizabeth Stokes’ vibrant voice remains the most memorable, but it is when she is backed by the backing vocals, as in ‘Til My Heart Stops’, that she is most moving. The sound of the electric guitar rarely strays from its clear tone; it can sometimes take on an extra layer of saturation to present a livelier face. The rhythm section follows the same pattern, with an effective snare drum taking the lead on ‘Take’, the catchiest track on the album.
Between sparkling new bands and unexpected reunions, Britpop is definitely on a roll right now! And in the latter category, if there’s one band we weren’t expecting anything from in 2025, it was Suede! And yet, that hasn’t stopped them from releasing one of the best albums of the autumn. The band formed in the late 1980s and, even before releasing their first single, found themselves on the front page of Melody Maker. They followed this up with a debut album that reached number one in the UK charts, then a non-linear career with several years of inconsistency between success and separation.
In better shape than ever, Brett Anderson’s band is back with an album still inspired by the music of David Bowie and The Smiths. The musical foundations, a mix of finely crafted melodies and invigorating energy, which made Suede’s reputation both on stage and on record, are still there, but today there are a few more insistent touches from other styles such as New Wave and Goth, music that also influenced England. This stylistic openness is skillfully negotiated by the musicians, who combine their personalities with delightful efficiency.
The band’s characteristic sound texture, made up of stringy, clear guitars, which, as we said, evokes The Smiths, but with a little more rock, is still present and will delight long-time fans as well as new converts to shoegaze. On Antidepressants, Brett Anderson’s voice, although it has matured, retains its distinctive quality, the singer having adapted it to both energetic flights of fancy and more subtle tracks such as ‘Broken Music For Broken People’ and ‘Trance State’. Inevitably, with musicians of this calibre, the music is served up with impeccable production that leaves nothing to chance and allows you to enjoy it even on a very good sound system, especially if you can turn up the volume!
Artist: Devo Album: Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo / Devo Live Label: Virgin Records Link: https://clubdevo.com/ Style: Pop/Rock
Like many bands working in the pop rock style, Devo was formed when a group of students attending the same university got together. In this case, it was Kent State University in Ohio, the very same university where Nixon sent in the National Guard to suppress a student demonstration, leading to the military opening fire on 4 May 1970. Nine students were wounded and four were killed. Music lovers know that this tragic event inspired a song by Neil Young, but fewer people associate it with the political awareness of the members of Devo. The latter, who were art students, initially used drawing and painting to express their ideas. With the help of a teacher’s advice, they conceptualized the principle of D-Evolution, a kind of programmed decline of modern societies.
It was not until 1972 that these artists really began to use music as a means of expression. If you listen to them objectively, their style, with lyrics that are often misunderstood, can easily make them seem like entertainers who only retain the anti-conformist side of Dadaism. However, as mentioned above, their message is much deeper and more sophisticated, as you can see clearly in a recent documentary available on Netflix. Returning to the box set, it includes Devo’s first album (1978), plus a live recording made a few years later. Using instruments that they have greatly modified themselves, the musicians incorporate choruses that are chanted and repeated like slogans to atypical, frenetic and bouncy rhythms. The bass, which also retains its originality, can be likened to funk, while the energetic guitar shares quirky melodies with the interventions of a dissonant synthesizer. Many of their tracks are perfect for getting stuck in your head and following you around all day, like their version of ‘Satisfaction’, approved by Mick Jagger himself.
Largely due to their excessive originality, but also because of their love/hate relationship with the commercial machine surrounding music and the specialized media – MTV in particular, which nevertheless reveled in these pioneers of the music video in its early days – Devo’s success was short-lived. The interest they received therefore never matched their talent and originality. On the most defined systems, the sound recording of the first album lags behind more audiophile productions. Listening with headphones, particularly Sennheiser HD 800S headphones, clearly reveals this aspect, whereas entry-level headphones tend to smooth out the slightly muffled sounds. However, this sound is not perceived as a limitation to the listening experience and is in keeping with the offbeat style of the music, which is very catchy. Here, the live performance is more expansive and dynamic, returning to higher production standards, this time with a noticeable difference and therefore greater enjoyment if the listening system is of high quality.
Taking simply her initials as her stage name, Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson imagined herself pursuing a career as a professional musician from a very young age. With this in mind, she left her native Ireland to settle in Manchester with the band she was part of at the time. Following a songwriting workshop, she met singer Charli XCX, who encouraged her to change her musical style. Happily following her advice, she returned to Ireland and released tracks online before her debut album in 2022. The album was a huge success, reaching the top of the sales charts in her country.
Euro-Country is CMAT’s 3rd album, with a title full of meaning. It reminds us that Ireland plays a major role in the European origins of country music, but also that the country is part of the Eurozone, unlike Great Britain. With lyrics that are both humorous and quite committed, the singer denounces the hidden side of her country’s economic success. The cover, which is unapologetically kitsch – see her website – hides a pop sound that strikes a nice balance between a certain format and the artist’s artistic choices. It’s a nice alternative to Sabrina Carpenter’s overly calibrated latest album.
Although country elements are more prominent on certain tracks, such as ‘When A Good Man Cries’, they do not dominate the album. Closer to commercial pop, this disc fortunately retains an appeal in its compositions and a momentum that is perfectly rendered by fairly exemplary production. Everything is in its right place, especially the lead vocals and backing vocals. The tempo changes are perfectly negotiated by impeccable rhythm, and the instruments – piano, violins and guitars – take turns coming to the fore depending on the track, maintaining a real connection between them while each retaining its own distinctive character thanks to the beautiful definition of their timbres.
A leading band of 90s Britpop, Pulp is strongly embodied by the charismatic Jarvis Cocker, founder and sole original member today. Involved in music since his teens, he saw the band evolve around him. Starting out in post-punk New Wave, the band shifted towards a lighter pop sound in the mid-1980s and achieved notable recognition in 1994 with the album His ‘n’ Her, a success reinforced by Different Class, released the following year. Separated for more than twenty years, the band also had to say goodbye to their bassist, who passed away in 2023. The unexpected release of this album is therefore an event that will delight fans of English indie pop.
Jarvis Cocker’s relaxed crooner-style vocals and diction are as sensual and seductive as ever. They work wonders on the pop tracks that make up this album. While the compositions may not reach the intensity of the best tracks of the 90s, they will not disappoint fans with their sophisticated but never complex structures. The alternation of heavy tracks with more refined ones, plus a few stylistic deviations verging on disco, results in a very enjoyable album that can be listened to many times without ever seeming redundant.
As expected from a band of this caliber, the recording and production quality is top notch. The beautiful balance between the vocals and the other instruments is immediately apparent. The bandwidth is well used, with sometimes lush strings that call on the tweeters and rather warm drums, which are skillfully kept from becoming too emphatic if your system has trouble handling the bass. The transition between tracks with varying amounts of instruments highlights either density or precision, both harbingers of good times for the attentive audiophile.
