Boy Harsher's new one GET MEAN is a coldwave and EBM record about getting wrecked by life and crawling back. Jae Matthews and Augustus Muller have been making this kind of hard, minimal electronic music since 2014, and they have not softened up. The tempos are slow and the bass tones are thick. Matthews delivers most of the vocals in that spoken word style she does, half-sung and half-confessional, over drum machines that sound like they are running on dead batteries. Tracks like "Break Me" and "Hard Beat" push the tempo up a little, but the mood stays sour and heavy.
The lyrics are about grief and heartbreak and surviving the aftermath. It is a redemption record but not a pretty one. The duo calls it a meditation on loss and that fits. There are no bright synth pads or major chords to soften the landing. Just bass, noise, drums, and a voice that sounds like it has had enough. Fans of Linea Aspera, Kontravoid, or early Front 242 will find plenty to latch onto. It comes on vinyl, CD and cassette. The 16/44 FLAC is clean and hits hard on a proper system.
If you liked their earlier records like Careful or The World Continues to End, this sits in the same lane. It is not a reinvention. It is a deepening of the same dark groove they have been working for a decade. The track "Falling" is a standout. The drums are almost dubby, the bass is a low rumble, and Matthews sounds like she is reading a letter she does not want to send. That is the whole record in one song.
