It’s a big day for The Beths. The New Zealand-based quartet have announced their third album, Expert in a Dying Field, which will be out Sept. 16 via Carpark Records. They also dropped the zippy lead single from the forthcoming LP, “Silence Is Golden,” along with a music video.
Our first preview of the follow-up to 2020’s Jump Rope Gazers (unless you count February one-off “A Real Thing,” though that track doesn’t appear on the new record), “Silence Is Golden” maintains The Beths’ bright power-pop and guitar-driven song structures. There’s a palpable tension throughout the track, reinforced by the tight percussion and Elizabeth Stokes’ rapid repetition of “The sound, the sound, the sound, the sound, the sound, the sound, the sound, the sound.” The unbearable level of noise getting under her skin, she compares it to a “building to a jet plane engine / Building to 6 a.m. construction / It’s building and building and building until I can’t function at all.”
“The song is about stress and anxiety manifesting as an intolerance to noise,” Stokes said in a statement. “Where each new sound makes you more and more stressed.”
The band set out to make an album intended to be experienced live, both for fans and themselves. In the “Silence Is Golden” music video, directed by Callum Devlin, listeners get a taste of their ear-splitting and infectious live act as the lights began to flash before everything goes deadly quiet. The Beths don’t mess around with theatrics—instead, they rely on the raw power of their sound to create a captivating live performance.
You can find a full list of The Beths’ summer tour dates further down this page. Tickets are available here.
Check out the video for “Silence Is Golden” below, along with the band’s 2019 Paste session and the details of Expert in a Dying Field.
Expert in a Dying Field Tracklist:
01. Expert In A Dying Field
02. Knees Deep
03. Silence Is Golden
04. Your Side
05. I Want To Listen
06. Head In The Clouds
07. Best Left
08. Change In The Weather
09. When You Know You Know
10. A Passing Rain
11. I Told You That I Was Afraid
12. 2am
Expert in a Dying Field Art:
The Beths Tour Dates:
July
24 – Seattle, WA @ Capitol Hill Block Party
25 – Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret
29 – Brooklyn, NY @ BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival
31 – Denver, CO @ UMS – The Underground Music Showcase
August
02 – San Diego, CA @ Belly Up Tavern
03 – Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory
04 – Santa Barbara, CA @ SoHo Restaurant & Music Club
05 – San Francisco, CA @ Outside Lands Music Festival
07 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge
10 – Davenport, IA @ Raccoon Motel
11 – Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop
13 – North Adams, MA @ Here and There Festival, Mass MoCA
14 – Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace
15 – Detroit, MI @ The Magic Bag
16 – Chicago, IL @ Here and There Festival, Salt Shed
18 – St. Louis, MO @ Blueberry Hill
19 – Indianapolis, IN @ Hi-Fi
20 – Covington, KY (Cincinnati) @ Madison Live
22 – Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall
23 – Richmond, VA @ The Broadberry
25 – Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar
26 – Asbury Park, NJ @ Asbury Lanes
27 – Portland, ME @ Portland House of Music & Events
28 – Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz
31 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Spirit Hall
September
1 – Columbus, OH @ A&R Music Bar
