Why The Beths’ “Jump Rope Gazers” is My Album of 2020

One day early this fall I was listening to Spotify radio for the album “Honeymoon” by Beach Bunny, my album of the year at that point, when “Dying to Believe” by the Beths, a band at the time unknown to me, came on. I was quickly drawn to the song’s infectious riffage from guitarist Jonathan Pearce, the band’s use of dynamic contrast, the switches between beauty and tension in lead vocalist Elizabeth Stokes’ singing, and quirky passages of spoken public transport announcements in the song. I soon checked out the rest of the album that “Dying to Believe” was included in, and my ears rejoiced!

The Beths are an indie rock band from Auckland, New Zealand, and their album “Jump Rope Gazers”, released on July 10th of this year, is their sophomore release. Their sound is of the basic guitar, drums, bass, vocals, and occasional keyboard indie rock format, and are part of a recent revival of drum machine-free rock music (with other bands like the aforementioned Beach Bunny, Wolf Alice, and Fatherson) that is influenced by 90’s and 2000’s grunge and pop-punk. The Beths also have strong influences from psychedelic rock, heard most clearly on the title track of “Jump Rope Gazers” and “Do You Want Me Now”; the band’s signature, Beach Boys-esque collective harmonies are present throughout the album.

The band provides an seamless flow between tracks while also keeping listeners invested, keeping the same instrumental palette but mixing energetic tracks like the opener “I’m Not Getting Excited” and new single “Mars, the God of War” with slower, softer tracks like the lovestruck title track and the reflective “You Are a Beam of Light” and more midtempo, mid-intensity songs in which they show off their skills with contrast like “Dying to Believe” and “Out of Sight”. They even include an impactful accelerando on “Don’t Go Away”. The band’s dual influences from grunge and psychedelic rock are balanced well: Stokes’ thoughtful, confessional vocals are paired with fluttering soundscapes of Pearce’s guitars and eventually the band’s harmonies on the choruses of “Out of Sight”, “Jump Rope Gazers”, and “Do You Want Me Now”, while passages of Stokes’ falsetto from “Mars, the God of War” and “I’m Not Getting Excited” are met with crunching guitars that signal her to change to a deeper, more tense style of singing. Pearce takes many solos throughout the album, showing psychedelic rock influences by making heavy use of pedals and distortion; my favorite solo from him, however, is a 10 second romp in “Mars, the God of War”, in which he throws in effects but also shows off his harmonic and technical abilities. Drummer Tristan Deck, promoted from a touring member to a full band member in 2019, provides some impressive fills at the end of “Out of Sight”, the beginning of “Mars, the God of War”, and the end of “Don’t Go Away”.

Stokes’ lyrics that capture the subtleties of social life with exceptional cleverness and wit, however, are what make the Beths and “Jump Rope Gazers” so special. Her nonchalant yet sincere vocals provide an atmosphere of assured cool that contributes to the anthemic and relatable quality of the tracks. In a time in which enforced distancing for reasons of public health and political strife that can bleed into people’s everyday lives both abound, her lyrics strike an incredible chord as myself, and many others, try to hold onto our social relations.

In “Dying to Believe”, she discusses how hard it can be to express her own feelings and views, not because she isn’t confident in them, but because she knows that they may come out in the wrong way and that others may not be willing to listen to her. My favorite line from the song is “I'm sorry for the way that I can't hold conversations / They're such a fragile thing to try support the weight of / It's not that I don't think that my point of view is valid / It's just that I can't stand the sound of my own patterns.” I often have the same feelings that she expresses in the song, as when I am too nervous to express my own views to my friends and family, I often doubt my ability to be my own person separate from others. And as she sings during the last verse, “And now I'm lighter finally”, I feel a sense of (admittedly uneasy) relief and freedom once I have the courage to be myself and share what I think.

In “Acrid”, she describes the uneasy balancing act of trying to form a new friendship or relationship, hoping to meet up with a while also not getting so excited if this meet-up happens that it becomes awkward. In the verses, she describes how she tries to avoid this awkwardness, by example singing about trying to contact this person by text “Tragic, the messages I send, my mind post-midnight / Are showing seen but no reply / So I mash the keys a million times for a million years and / Maybe by chance, I'll say it right.” Then, in the chorus, her true feelings of wanting to get to know this person rush forth, “But it's you, it's you / I wanna run into”, inducing an all-too-relatable catharsis. In similar situations to the one she describes to this song, I have wanted to say something to this effect, but have (possibly rightly) held back so I could maintain proper social etiquette in our atomistic society.

In “Mars, the God of War”, Stokes sings about another all-to-relatable topic, the seemingly inescapable heated exchanges over the Internet, which have become more and more of our social interaction in a time of COVID-induced lockdowns and the polarization-induced increasing intersections between political beliefs and social ties. I’m surprised that a resident of New Zealand, a nation which has handled the COVID Pandemic better than the USA and is less politically polarized, has written so poignantly on this issue. But perhaps I should not be that surprised, as the song was written before the COVID Pandemic spread outside of China, the Beths have toured extensively around an increasingly connected world, and heated exchanges being a natural part of human social interaction wherever one lives and whichever one’s situation. Anyways, “Mars, the God of War” is about Stokes pulling back from sending an angry message. She compares her computer to a “war machine”, as she sings “I make war on this war machine / A careful chosen word, designed to hurt / But will it stir some new philosophy? / Retreat or be defeated, baby.” The middle two lines of this excerpt strike a special chord with me, as I have often wanted to angrily, passionately comment to friends about how I disagree with what they believe and how my way of thinking is correct, but I have realized that doing so is neither the most effective nor the most kind way to do so. Similarly to me, and reluctantly like me (unfortunately), Stokes holds her anger back and plans to re-write her thoughts, as she sings “I wish that I could wish you well / Instead I'm hitting my head and hitting backspace on

/ ‘Can't you just go to hell?’”

In “You Are a Beam of Light”, the only acoustic track on the album, Stokes’ emotive voice and Pearce’s twinkling guitars reach their full potential, and her lyrics match this mood and quality. She sings to a person she cares about who has been through tough times, explaining over a phone call that they bring joy to life and that they can still be helpful to her. Stokes is quoted as saying this about the inspiration for the song in an interview for DIY Magazine: “I wished for teleportation powers so many times, for the power to appear on my friends' doorsteps and tell them things were going to be OK. That sometimes things are hard, and sometimes bad things happen to good people. To the best people.” The chorus’ refrain goes “'Cause we live in darker times / Open my eyes so I can see brighter, oh / You are a beam of light / Maybe that's why your battery runs dry.” I can envision myself as of a few months ago, when I was having a very hard time, as the person being spoken to in this song, and I can envision the speaker of these words as any of the many family members and friends who have helped and supported me.

Overall, The Beths’ “Jump Rope Gazers” is an eclectic, introspective, heartfelt, moving record. As a listener of much highly technical, experimental music, it is incredibly refreshing for an indie rock band to deliver such a tight effort that perfects a more mainstream sound and group of instruments while also providing lyrical resonance. I recommend this underappreciated album, my favorite (so far) of this year, to any fans of rock or pop music.