The Beths dwell on post-election dread with fiery new single ‘A Real Thing’

nme.com:

The Beths have returned with a powerful new single titled ‘A Real Thing’, marking their first new material in almost two years.It’s a darker track than fans of the band have to come to expect, standing out amid their catalogue with its bleak lyrics and bold, authoritative riffs more akin to metal than The Beths’ typically buoyant, jangly pseudo-surf-pop.

On its explosive chorus, frontwoman Liz Stokes sings: “Getting rhyme over reason / It’s a sinister silly season / But maybe we can end up meaning / A real thing.”The track arrives alongside a video helmed by the band’s longtime collaborators Annabel Kean and Callum Devlin (aka Sports Team), with whom The Beths recently worked on their concert film ‘Auckland, New Zealand, 2020’.

Framed as a home video – replete with an old-school VHS filter – the clip comprise loose camcorder shots of the band exploring their homeland of New Zealand.Take a look at the video for ‘A Real Thing’ below:In a statement shared with the track, Stokes likened ‘A Real Thing’ to “a kind of anxiety dream”, describing it as “a bit muddled, a bit frantic [and] a bit sinister”.

She continued: “[This song] is what came out of my guitar in late 2020, post NZ election (and US election).“I was limply reaching for optimism about the future, but was really just marinating in dread.