Do you feel regret
Do you even know my name…
Ahead of the September 18 release of Get Mean, Boy Harsher have unveiled “Tough Luck (When You Don’t Call),” the third advance single from their first new album since the 2022 film and soundtrack The Runner. The song finds Jae Matthews trying to maintain the appearance of composure while an unanswered telephone turns distance into rejection, doubt, and the humiliating fear of having been forgotten.
An uneasy synth introduction quickly opens into a brisk new-wave dance beat, with a firm kick, rounded bass, bright keyboards, and clipped bursts of distorted guitar giving the track a warmer and more openly pop-minded character. Matthews sings in a heartbroken drawl that seems to drag against the arrangement’s forward motion. The contrast makes the song feel almost euphoric at first, although every melodic lift carries another reminder that the person she wants remains absent.
“Tough Luck (When You Don’t Call)” is a song that could have occupied late-night radio in the mid-1980s, when sleek synthesizers, post-punk guitar, and bruised romanticism regularly met inside a four-minute single. Boy Harsher retain the uncanny atmosphere that has always accompanied their music, yet the unease here is romantic and immediate: the sort of private crisis that can accompany a night drive while the road continues forward with far more certainty than the relationship.
The verses are built from questions sent into silence. Faith has waned, time has been lost, and Jae questions whether the person on the other end feels regret or even remembers her. The plea “Do you even know my name?” cuts deep, as recognition is now the least she expects. In response to this fear, the repeated assurance “I’m OK” increasingly resembles a rehearsed line, seemingly for the benefit of the one saying it.
The official lyric video transforms that rehearsal into an analog karaoke experience. Made using vintage video gear by Los Angeles video artist Sean McGuirk and shot at PropHaus Brooklyn by Jesse Korman, it keeps the camera focused on the curved glass of an old CRT television in a dimly lit room. The screen displays a cold blue background with thick yellow letters appearing beneath rolling scan lines, bowed edges, and concentric patterns created by photographing a cathode-ray display.
Its opening card resembles a selection from a home karaoke catalogue: “IN THE STYLE OF,” followed by the artist, title, and parenthetical subtitle. From that point, the lyrics move across the blue background in uppercase, with parts of each line fading, smearing, or bleaching toward white alongside the vocal cues. The abbreviations “U,” “YR,” and “N” mimic the shorthand of text messaging, yet they appear on a television from an earlier technological era. Thus, a song about failed communication is conveyed through two outdated mediums: the silent, unanswered phone and the solitary glow of a karaoke machine.
McGuirk also leaves the machinery’s awkward instructions intact. Cards reading “INSTRUMENTAL BREAK” interrupt the lyrics with dry literalism, while the chorus is broken into syllabic prompts that make Matthews’ faltering reassurance available for anyone to sing. Karaoke usually transforms private listening into a social performance; here, there is no visible room, microphone, or gathering of friends. The viewer faces only the television and the uneasy invitation to inhabit the singer’s denial.
The absence of performers becomes the video’s central image. Matthews is heard but never seen, much as the person she addresses exists only through the failure to make contact. The warm momentum of the music presses against the cool television light until the screen returns to its title card at the end, ready to begin the selection again. That reset gives the waiting a circular quality: another call can go unanswered, another chorus can insist that everything is fine, and the machine will remain prepared to repeat the performance.
Watch the lyric video for Tough Luck (When You Don’t Call) below:
Stream “Tough Luck (When You Don’t Call)” across digital services here.
Get Mean began during a period when the continuation of Boy Harsher was far from assured. In early 2024, after years of international touring and increasingly ambitious work across music and film, Matthews and Augustus Muller ended their romantic relationship. The separation followed personal turmoil, family loss, and a creative block that left both the band and the prospect of another album uncertain.
Writing resumed when Matthews took to the road, moving through West Texas, the Pacific Northwest, South Florida, and points between. That unsettled geography became part of the album itself. Described as Boy Harsher’s “road album,” Get Mean was recorded across eight locations in the United States, Mexico, and Italy, gathering cellphone voice notes, environmental recordings, and changing emotional states along the way.
Matthews describes the album as:
“what I had to give during the most extreme period of my life.”
Across its twelve tracks, the duo’s familiar coldwave momentum meets detuned pads, abrasive synth leads, pedal-steel bends, New Romantic guitar, percussive jokes, and unadorned phone recordings. Those additions allow grief and exhaustion to coexist with flirtation, humor, and the possibility of beginning again. The album follows the collapse of one form of intimacy while testing whether another—the creative bond between Matthews and Muller—can survive it.
Get Mean arrives September 18 via Atlantic Records. Pre-order and pre-save the album here.
Matthews and Muller formed Boy Harsher in 2014 after meeting while studying film in Savannah. Their first EP, Lesser Man, began as a small cassette release before “Pain” spread widely online. The duo followed it with Yr Body Is Nothing in 2016, the Country Girl EP in 2017, and Careful in 2019. Their filmmaking background came fully into view with The Runner, the 2022 horror film and accompanying soundtrack that they wrote, produced, directed, and scored.
Their cinematic work continues with The Lonely Woman, their forthcoming feature-length horror thriller starring Chloë Sevigny, FKA twigs, Sturgill Simpson, Will Oldham, and Jake Weary. Boy Harsher are directing the film and providing its score.
Following the release of Get Mean, Boy Harsher will begin an extensive North American headline tour before continuing through Europe and the United Kingdom with support from Choir Boy. The itinerary includes sold-out two-night runs in Chicago and Portland, a sold-out Los Angeles appearance at the Hollywood Palladium, and newly sold-out dates in Denver, Paris, Glasgow, and Bristol.
Follow Boy Harsher:
With support from Choir Boy, except where otherwise noted.
* Festival date
^ Supporting Turnstile
Featured photo by Nathaniel Jerome
The post “Do You Even Know My Name?” — Boy Harsher Turns Heartbreak Into Karaoke in Lyric Video for “Tough Luck (When You Don’t Call)” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.
