Sarah Meth's 'Something Shameful' Is a Disarming Masterpiece of Self-Produced Nerve
The Sonic Breakdown
Something Shameful came out October 30 on Wishbone, Meth’s own label, which is the most useful fact about it: she wrote, produced and mixed most of these songs herself. The sessions were split between 4AD’s London studio, with in-house engineer Fabian Prynn, and a South London bedroom, on a laptop, with Louis O’Bryen of Sorry.
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: The bass is the record’s secret weapon and it is not a polite one. The Line of Best Fit hears on “Cheek” the “swampy bass of the kind that Krist Novoselic of Nirvana used to trade in” — a thick, slightly unbothered tone that drags a folk-pop song somewhere heavier. On “Sonic,” the same review clocks “the heavy fuzz of The Cranberries’ ‘Zombie.’”
The Spatial Dynamics: Two rooms, two scales, no attempt to disguise the seam. Hard of Hearing Magazine picks out the “backing MIDI-synth” holding up “Don’t touch me you’re my hero,” and on “I gave you a shell (because I felt like one),” “crashing cymbals and distant bass notes” — a mix that lets a cheap sound and an expensive one share a chorus.
Standout Performance
Meth as her own producer. Handing a debut to someone else is the default; keeping it, mixing it, and still landing a record this legible is a different kind of achievement, and the writing never gets lost in the self-reliance.
Why It’s Certified
⚡ Song titles doing a lot of work on their own: “Don’t touch me you’re my hero,” “I gave you a shell (because I felt like one).”
🌈 The Line of Best Fit gave it 8/10, writing that “Meth documents the ups and downs of cosmopolitan casualness in a bold and often fascinating way,” and that “I am most struck by the insight and honesty she offers in her words.”
🌈 Hard of Hearing Magazine: “Imbued with open-wound lyricism, ‘Something Shameful’ encapsulates the complexities of being in your 20s,” a debut that “turns the quotidian on its head, conjures lullabies for the isolated.”