Greet Death - Die In Love
2025 • DEATHWISH INC. • SHOEGAZE / ALTERNATIVE
85/100
Much like with professional basketball, I came to an appreciation—and, ultimately, an enjoyment—of Greet Death relatively late. The Flint, Michigan shoegaze band has been around for close to a decade now, but really emerged into the public eye in 2017 with the release of their debut album, Dixieland. Aside from an Audiotree live appearance and a one-off EP in 2022, the band has been quiet on the release front since their 2019 full-length New Hell (which was my introduction to them and served to solidify the grungy, heavy shoegaze sound they introduced on Dixieland).
Sonically speaking, Die In Love—the band’s first full-length album since 2019 and first as a five-piece—doesn’t reinvent the formula that has been Greet Death’s bread and butter thus far. That’s not to say they haven’t changed, however. Perhaps the biggest shift the band has undergone over the course of their career is the one that impacted this record most directly: founding guitarist and co-vocalist Harper Boyhtari came out as a trans woman just over a year ago. It’s a realization and life change that—like with other notable trans artists (Against Me!’s Laura Jane Grace comes to mind)—sheds new light on much of the band’s earlier material. But—as discussed in a fantastic new Stereogum profile—Die In Love was wholly written prior to Boyhtari’s transition.
Where Die In Love does differ from the rest of Greet Death’s catalog is in its overall tone and feeling. Fear not—there are still heavy songs aplenty—but, per Gaval and Boyhtari’s discussions of the record, the band members themselves are happier, which is definitely reflected across the album. Dixieland and New Hell are both dark, depressive albums that are often lyrically akin to fourth- and fifth-wave emo records, but there’s a cool “countrygaze” twinge that runs throughout many of the songs on Die In Love. I can’t speak directly to what influenced the band while writing the record, but tracks across it reminded me of acts as diverse as The Beatles and Canadian power-pop duo Ducks Ltd., to Wednesday and emo/shoegaze heroes Turnover. The mixing and mastering on this record is also phenomenal—layers of guitar overdubs and ethereal chord patches cut through the fuzz on every song for maximum impact.
Speaking about lead single “Country Girl,” Boyhtari says, “The song is about identity, alienation, and detachment. It’s like trying to solve a murder mystery and finding out you were the killer the whole time.” The (excellent) music video reflects this sentiment. In the video—which contains multiple homages to 1980s horror movies—Boyhtari and the band’s other guitarist/vocalist, Logan Gaval, appear as both their real-world selves and, respectively, a horrific demonically possessed girl (à la The Exorcist’s Regan MacNeil) and a young priest who comes to exorcise her but ends up falling victim to the same possession. Both the video and the song absolutely rip and have been in near-constant rotation for me since their release. (Any song that name-drops John Carpenter automatically has my seal of approval!)
Overall, Die In Love is probably the most accessible record Greet Death has ever released—in a good way. It signals an optimistic future for the band, who seem happy with the niche they’ve carved for themselves in the modern shoegaze scene. This probably isn’t an album I’d throw on casually, but I can definitely see myself revisiting it more than I have their previous releases.
PLAYER COMP: KHRIS MIDDLETON
Generally speaking, not reinventing the wheel. But it’s comfortable, reliable, and still sneaky good.