GET MEAN, the new twelve-track record from Jae Matthews and Augustus Muller aka Boy Harsher focuses on themes including love, loss, grief, heartbreak and survival. Following the end of Matthews and Muller’s relationship in early 2024, along with a period of familial loss and a creative block, this was an album which almost never saw the light of day but, one which was ultimately inspired by the most challenging period of their own personal lives.
With Matthews subsequently travelling across several parts of the United States, including West Texas, the Pacific Northwest and South Florida, this kickstarted the writing of material for a new record with Matthews rediscovering her identity while, at times, disappearing off the map completely. Speaking about the album now, Matthews describes the “the most extreme period of her life” as one which resulted in Boy Harsher’s “road album”.
An album that, musically, will sound familiar to fans of Boy Harsher‘s previous work, ‘GET MEAN’ is bathed in synthesiers, electronic production, and cold beats. Recorded in multiple locations across the US, Mexico and Italy, the album also finds the duo experimenting with additional sounds such as detuned pads, synth leads, cellphone voice notes and New Romantic textures. The end result is something which, instantaniously, takes you back to an era of New Romantic pop without sounding dated.
Unsurprisingly, given the inspiration behind the album, ‘GET MEAN’ finds Matthews in unflinchingly honest mood when it comes to her words. During a period of rediscovery and trauma, ‘GET MEAN’ is an album which finds Boy Harsher posing difficult questions to themselves as individuals and as a group. That being said, while ‘GET MEAN’ does find the pair asking difficult, challenging questions during a time when, let’s be honest, that is the last thing they probably wanted to do, it is also an album that takes a look towards a new future for the pair.
Like many of the tracks on this album, songs like “Tough Luck (When You Don’t Call)” and recent single “Hard Beat”, drip with that New Romantic synth sound. It also finds the pair ushering in a new chapter in both their personal and professional lives with the previously mentioned new musical experiments. What that combination of ushering out the past and experimenting with the new means is that, for fans of Boy Harsher, you will find tracks like “Ronny” and “Faulty“ displaying that familiar electro-pop sounds while still sounding fresh alongside tracks like “Coming Home” and the poppier “Pray 4 Me”.
Dealing with the amount of trauma, grief and personal upheaval that Boy Harsher have dealt with could have understandably been the death knell for the popular pair however, taking a cathartic approach to facing those situations head on and channeling the grief into a twelve song collection could be the start of a very long healing process for the duo.
Pick up your copy of GET MEAN from the Official Boy Harsher Webstore here.
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