Indie Darlings with The Beths, Forth Wanderers, HAIM, Water From Your Eyes & Wolf Alice: Rapid Fire Reviews

Straight Line Was A Circle - The Beths

I was late to The Beth's rock-solid 2022 album Expert In A Dying Field, something I still regret. That's why, going into this album cycle, I was paying close attention to the singles, something that paid off. The New Zealand indie rockers conjured hazy, dreamy, catchy bliss one time after another, starting with the sentimental "Metal." That same indie punk zeal pops up on the delightful "No Joy" whose verses have been drilled into my head for weeks. But the band also showed off a more sentimental side on songs like the gentle "Mother, Pray For Me" and the deep cut "Mosquitos." 

The opener and title track, "Straight Line Was A Lie," is a punky tongue-in-cheek opener that sets up some of the punkier themes of aimlessness that the record explores in depth and does it with an irresistibly sweet guitar riff. Just like it starts on a strong sequence, the album ends strongly, starting with my favorite deep cut, "Roundabout." The some embodys the dreamy production and infectious hook that made all the singles great, and when the backing vocals crash in it makes for one of my favorite moments on the album. That leads into the irresistible "Ark Of The Covenant" and eventually strong closed "Best Laid Plans."

What Straight Line lacks in raw energy compared to my favorite moments from Dying Field, it makes up for with infectious songwriting. Though slower moments like "Mosquitoes" and "Till My Heart Stops" make the album's middle section sleepier than it needed to be, it doesn't disrupt my enjoyment of the album. Despite the fact that part of me hoped the band would soar a little bit higher on this follow-up, it's hard not to be pretty happy with the crop of songs they presented. 7/10

The Longer This Goes On - Forth Wanderers

Among the most surprising comebacks of 2025 is Sub Pop's own indie rockers Forth Wanderers. We haven't heard from the band since their creative and playful 2018 sophomore self-titled album. A pair of solid singles proved that the band was fully intent on returning to the peppy, slurring indie pop style they left off with. "7 Months" features flirty vocals and a wandering drum pattern that just flutter around each other, and "Bluff," which cleverly flirts with a full-on musical eruption but always leaves it right around the corner. In fact, a proof of concept for its pleading style pops up in a shorter track on the record itself called "Make Me," to even more great results. 

I think the album gets off to a bit of a plodding start with the track "To Know Me/To Love Me." It pops up again later on the track "Springboard," though I can forgive it much more on the more sentimental closer "Don't Go Looking." But for the most part, the album's deep cuts are made up of irresistible, blurring compositions that run the line between dreamy and punchy. On the more vibrant side there's a song like "Call You Back" which is an instant standout with its catchy refrains that pop higher and higher with every new passage. There's also "Barnard" which builds up to be one of the loudest and bounciest songs on the album, and the entire journey to get there is wonderful. 

Even songs that occupy a dreamier space, like "Honey" and "Spit," the dreamy guitars slur through the mix, balancing on a ledge and conjuring up anticipation. So it's safe to say I enjoyed this record for the most part. It's on the shorter side, and it's a shame that there's a track or two that doesn't feel nearly as interesting, but that hardly makes it a nonstarter. Instead, Forth Wanderers' third album is a playful, springy piece of guitar-driven fun with just enough emotional sentimentality cut into the mix to ground it all. 7.5/10

I quit - HAIM

The girl-group that took the world by storm a decade ago don't gather to release music very often, and when they do, there's no telling what kind of quality they'll come with. I'm starting to sense a pattern. After a debut that racked up its fair share of critical acclaim, the band became the modern standard for a sophomore slump. Their second album landed both critically and commercially with a total thud, and they took years to follow it up. But when they did, they bounced back with a third record that many, myself included, see as an improvement even on their debut. But as the pendulum swings, I quit is every bit as rough as their second album, maybe even worse. 

It didn't have to be this way. I went into this new era pretty excited on the strength of its excellent lead single, "Relationships." I still love how bouncy and hooky the entire song is, and the thematic posturing it takes about relationships is unique and nuanced. It isn't literally the only song on the record that I like, which counts for something. "Take Me Back" is a nostalgic deep cut that feels earnest alongside how slick it is. There's also "Love you right," a genuinely touching love ballad that pops up soon after. Unfortunately, the rest of the record runs the gambit from boring to outright bad. 

One way that badness manifests is with something that has always underscored HAIM, even in their best moments, white woman cringe. "Gone," "The farm," and "Blood on the street" are three of the best examples of tracks I struggle not to turn off halfway through. The single "Down to be wrong" almost had me at first with its 90s indie girl sentimentalities, but the overwhelming basicness of it all wears me down. Then there are songs like "Million years" with its Cassandra Jenkins-style spoken word verse or "Spinning" with its off-kilter refrains. Both songs have their good ideas, but never quite stick the landing. In fact, that's pretty much the main problem with this record as a whole. HAIM has about as much to say as they do on any other album and even tries a few cool ways of expressing it. But the music and especially the songwriting fail to elevate any of these tracks. If anything, they completely undermine them. 4/10

It's A Beautiful Place - Water From Your Eyes

In the world of charming, playful guitar bands, Water From Your Eyes established themselves as one of the most charming and one of the most playful on their 2023 6th album and Matador Records debut, Everyone's Crushed. It introduced a lot of people to their distinct brand of tongue-in-cheek indie pop and rock fusion and led to quite a bit of acclaim as a result. That acclaim would only grow last year, when member Nate Amos released the debut album of a new project, This Is Lorelei, which was also met with pretty strong reviews. That's why, despite a runtime of just 29 minutes and a tracklist with only 6 songs stretching past two minutes, I was very excited to hear what the band had to offer on It's A Beautiful Place.

That began with a trio of uniquely irresistible singles in the lead-up to the album. "Life Signs" came first, and it switches seamlessly between an impossibly cool low-key demeanor and a dreamier, more earnest hook with catchy ease. The third single, "Playing Classics," may be even better. It dishes out a bouncy instrumental packed with dreamy layers of vocals that all swell into this strange circular soup of blissful sounds that I love to get completely lost in. Even though I'm not quite as crazy about the third single, "Nights In Armor," it's still a solid cut. The guitar licks are pretty irresistible and when the crashing drums finally kick in it makes for a
fantastic moment. 

My favorite of the record's deep cuts is definitely "Born 2." It's a shoegazier outing with heavier layers that contrast really well with the somewhat tongue-in-cheek repetition in the lyrics. In fact, the only longer cut on the album I don't specifically care for is "Spaceship." The song has these weird bending guitar lines that are very much in a similarly playful nature to the rest of the album, but neither the refrains nor the lyrics stick with me in the same way. What the shorter tracks scattered throughout the album bring to the table is very much open for debate, but ultimately, they don't get in the way of a very good album. Water From Your Eyes leaned into some of their most unique traits and created yet another distinct record, even if this one feels like a far less sizeable artistic undertaking. In that slimmed-down format, however, they arrived at an impressive consistency for pumping out irresistible jams. 7.5/10

The Clearing - Wolf Alice

While I've never been a die-hard Wolf Alice fan, I do think there's something to be said for their consistent quality, and as a result, they've put together a very solid discography. Now four albums deep into their career, the band has a collection of great singles under their belt, and The Clearing worked in even more. The album ends with "White Horses" and "The Sofa," both of which deliver an energy that is sadly lacking across the middle of the album, and both feature killer hooks. The lead single "Bloom Baby Bloom" is a little more mixed, with a dreamier side I like a lot and harsher, screamed sections that feel a bit cringey with the loss of authenticity. 

Thankfully, it comes on a strong opening crawl that makes it a lot easier to swallow. The opener "Thorns" may be the very best song on the record. It's a dynamic sweeping ballad that introduces you to the band's newfound theatrics without ever reaching an overbearing conclusion. I've also come around to "Just Two Girls," whose lavish final minute is cut with charming lyrical flourishes and a conclusion that feels earned. In between a strong start and a strong finish, however, the band slips into something far less compelling. They start to engage in a theatricality that's a bit off-putting at its most garish, but hardly fatal. What's more difficult is that all of the edge the band has delivered in the past completely evaporates. It's hard to imagine that the group dishing out late-stage Panic! At The Disco musical slop is the same band that wrote "Your Loves Whore" and "Beautifully Unconventional." 

For Wolf Alice, the highs on this record are every bit as high as ever. Though the painful middle crawl does make it less compelling than their previous 3 albums as a full product, it doesn't take away their high points. If the record chose to drag things out for even longer, it could have worn me down enough to change my tone. But as it exists now, it's hard not to finish a listen and feel like I enjoyed more of it than I didn't. 6/10