On The Beths’ new album Expert In A Dying Field, Elizabeth Stokes’ songwriting positions her somewhere between being a novelist and a documentarian. The songs collected here are autobiographical, but they’re also character sketches of relationships and more importantly, their aftermaths. The question that hangs in the air: what do you do with how intimately versed you’ve become in a person, once they’re gone from your life? The third LP from the New Zealand quartet houses 12 jewels of tight, guitar-heavy songs that worm their way into your head, an incandescent collision of power-pop and skuzz. The album’s title track “Expert In A Dying Field” introduces the thesis for the record: “How does it feel to be an expert in a dying field? How do you know it’s over when you can’t let go?” Stokes asks. “Love is learned over time ‘til you’re an expert in a dying field.” ‘Expert In A Dying Field’ is out now via Carpark Records and Ivy League Records.

Rat Motel emerged with astounding elegance and ease for a structure of its size. When Old Man Winkle retired to the master suite for the last time there was a brief but violent power struggle resulting in the ascension of the brothers Peacock. (The rats, though indelibly embittered by this conclusion, were nonetheless satisfied that none of their own had clawed their way to the top.) In a fit of existential dread, unendearing arrogance, and a desperate yearning for eternity, a lofty aspect of the Motel rechristened itself “THE” Rat Motel, though the lower being refuses to carry the pretenses of such a definite article. It is what it is and that is enough. But try as The Rat Motel might to manifest the mad speculation of Zeno, the fact remains that Zeno was wrong. The infinite sum of one half raised to the power of each of the natural numbers is indeed equal to one; the hare will overtake the tortoise; and even THE Rat Motel, which towers below the universe with grinning pride, will one day crumble into THE dust of The Empty Plane with a predictable lack of elegance and ease.