New Zealand power-pop quartet The Beths are officially back in action. Like most bands in the last two years, their career has been quite literally plagued with travel restrictions, show cancellations and rescheduled tours, but now their long-awaited headlining tour is finally off the ground and new music is on the horizon.

“A Real Thing” is the follow up The Beths’ 2020 effort Jump Rope Gazers and features the same bright, punchy guitars we’ve come to expect from the band, but with a more cynical subject matter.

“‘A Real Thing’ is a kind of anxiety dream. It’s a bit muddled, a bit frantic, a bit sinister,” frontwoman Liz Stokes explains in a statement. “It’s what came out of my guitar in late 2020, post NZ election (and U.S. election). I was limply reaching for optimism about the future, but was really just marinating in dread.”

Watch The Beths perform “A Real Thing” plus Jump Rope Gazer’s “Acrid” and “Dying To Believe” live at WNXP’s Sonic Cathedral.