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 theyre 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 youve become in a person, once theyre 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 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 its over when you cant let go?” Stokes asks. “Love is learned over time til youre an expert in a dying field.”