The Beths – No Joy

The Beths have always turned pain into great indie rock songs, but ‘No Joy’ finds Elizabeth Stokes dealing with a very different problem: what do you do when medication makes life just bearable, dull, and uninspiring? This track is the centerpiece of their new album, ‘Straight Line Was A Lie’, which comes from Stokes’ experience trying to be creative while on SSRIs.
‘No Joy’ speaks to the neurological condition of not feeling pleasure with typical Beths directness: ‘This years gonna kill me / Gonna kill me’. The stress she’s singing about can’t touch her anymore. She finds herself missing even the capacity for genuine distress. A very modern predicament. Feeling good while reflecting on the loss of feeling much at all.
The production of the track mirrors this feeling of emotional numbness through deliberately muted dynamics, abandoning the band’s signature jangly brightness for lo-fi garage grit. What comes out sounds like classic Beths hooks filtered through cotton: still undeniably catchy, but with edges softened just enough to feel a little off.
Stokes wrote for the album in daily sessions at a Remington typewriter, banging out pages of stream-of-consciousness material that made her face memories she’d rather not think about. A methodical approach to dealing with discomfort led to some of her most vulnerable songwriting to date, proving that sometimes the most truthful art emerges from confessing that even truthfulness is challenging to find.

Tour Dates:

Wed. Sept. 17 – Dublin, IE @ Button Factory
Thu. Sept. 18 – Dublin, IE @ Button Factory [SOLD OUT]
Sat. Sept. 20 – Manchester, UK @ Albert Hall
Sun. Sept. 21 – Glasgow, UK @ SWG3 TV Studio
Mon. Sept. 22 – Leeds, UK @ Project House
Wed. Sept. 24 – Bristol, UK @ O2 Academy
Thu. Sept. 25 – Birmingham, UK @ XOYO
Fri. Sept. 26 – London, UK @ Roundhouse
Sat. Sept. 27 – Brighton, UK @ CHAL
Mon. Sept. 29 – Tourcoing, FR @ Le Grand Mix
Tue. Sept. 30 – Paris, FR @ Le Trabendo
Wed. Oct. 1 – Brussels, BE @ Botanique
Fri. Oct. 3 – Cologne, DE @ Kantine
Sat. Oct. 4 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
Sun. Oct. 5 – Hamburg, DE @ Knust
Tue. Oct. 7 – Stockholm, SE @ Slaktkyrkan
Wed. Oct. 8 – Oslo, NO @ Parkteatret Scene
Thu. Oct. 9 – Copenhagen, DK @ Pumpehuset
Sat. Oct. 11 – Berlin, DE @ Lido
Sun. Oct. 12 – Munich, DE @ Strom
Mon. Oct. 13 – Zurich, CH @ Plaza
Wed. Oct. 15 – Barcelona, ES @ Razzmatazz 2
Thu. Oct. 16 – Madrid, ES @ Nazca
Fri. Oct. 17 – Lisbon, PT @ LAV