Future Me Hates Me is the debut studio album by Auckland, New Zealand indie rock band The Beths, released on August 10, 2018 via Carpark Records. The four-piece — vocalist and primary lyricist Elizabeth Stokes, lead guitarist and producer Jonathan Pearce, bassist Benjamin Sinclair, and drummer Ivan Luketina-Johnston — are all trained jazz musicians who met at the University of Auckland, and the album was recorded in-house at Pearce's studio on Karangahape Road in Auckland. It followed the band's 2016 EP Warm Blood and arrived as a fully formed statement of intent: ten tracks of brisk, hook-saturated power-pop delivered in just under 39 minutes, its energy and confidence belying the fact that it was a debut. Stokes, when asked what the album was about, offered characteristically self-deflating answers — "infatuation or something," "self-hiding," "self-directed telling-offs" — and Rolling Stone described the lyrical territory as centering on "Stokes' reluctant attitude toward romance" and "the anxiety that stems from overthinking her feelings."The album was met with widespread critical acclaim, earning a Metacritic score of 83 and landing on numerous year-end lists. Pitchfork called it "one of the most impressive indie-rock debuts of the year," praising its "tight, hook-filled songwriting" and "energy and attitude," with lyrics that "cut to the bone." The Skinny noted that Stokes' songwriting focused on "existential themes and self-deprecation while negating the need for the kind of down-tempo musical styles that typically accompanies sadness" — a quality that gives the record its distinctive charge: songs about self-doubt and romantic anxiety delivered at full-tilt volume, with sugary melodies and driving guitars that feel like a riposte to po-faced indie cynicism. The band went on to win Best Group and Best Alternative Artist at the 2019 Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards, and Future Me Hates Me remains the launchpad for one of the most consistently praised indie rock bands to emerge from New Zealand in recent years.
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