Boy Harsher's 'GET MEAN' Turns Grief Into the Most Danceable Record of Their Career
GET MEAN arrived September 18th. The duo’s own description of it is unusually plain for a darkwave record: “a meditation on love, loss, and survival,” and “a redemption album – a document of one of life’s most painful chapters and the strength found on the other side of it.” The Line of Best Fit’s Simon Heavisides gave it 8/10 and didn’t hedge: “Boy Harsher have created the best music of their career without sacrificing anything, musically speaking.”
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Augustus Muller’s synth bass has always been the load-bearing wall, and here it’s built wider than on previous Boy Harsher records. “Break Me” runs on what The Line of Best Fit describes as “relentless motorik” — a pulse that holds a single tone long enough for the top end to do all the moving, which is the oldest trick in coldwave and still the best one.
The Spatial Dynamics: The palette is, in Best Fit’s words, “richer and more inviting” than the duo’s earlier work. Jae Matthews’s vocals sit further forward than the genre usually allows; there’s less cavernous reverb hiding the words, which matters on a record whose whole subject is being specific about loss. AllMusic caught the cumulative effect: “Though it seems light on the surface at first, Get Mean hits hard by the time it ends.”
Standout Performance
Matthews, for delivering lines that Best Fit flags as brutally explicit on “Tough Luck (When You Don’t Call)” without ever tipping into melodrama.
Why It’s Certified
⚡ “Ronny” opens with what Best Fit calls “glistening synths” and roadworn weariness; “Jeans” is the almost-carefree one; “Break Me” is the motorik centerpiece.
🌈 “Ivy’s Spiral” is forty-four seconds of spoken word placed exactly where a lesser sequence would have put a filler instrumental, and “Bleed” closes twelve tracks as what Best Fit calls a haunting, aching finish. Best Fit’s summary holds: “a lean and focused album, with no lulls and where no track overstays its welcome.”
Certified great.