Even if phrases like ‘face-melting’ are the height of rock journo cringe…come on—just look at that artwork; they’re practically asking for it! Justifiably so, in a project that rose from the still-warm ashes of Every Time I Die, with Greg Puciato at the helm to continue his extensive run of never-missing side-ventures. That’s like implanting a dragon’s head on a T-Rex’s body, for a breed of wrecker that’s all new but distinctly primal.
Needless to say, then, Better Lovers are still pretty darn good. Their sensibilities for that get even more refined on a full-length compared to their debut EP God Made Me An Animal, a swift IED of a release cobbled together from its creators’ previous thrusts for a bruising hardcore / mathcore fragment. Highly Irresponsible, on the other hand, is an expansion befitting of total, lived professionals within this field. It’s bigger and bolder, naturally, without the prior electricity dispersing by any measurable degree. Not that that’s at all surprising; between them, Better Lovers have about half a century’s worth of experience inside this exact field. It’s just nice to have the confirmation that it all plays out precisely as you’d like.
That is to say, you could reasonably call this a middle ground between Every Time I Die and The Dillinger Escape Plan. Fit For An Autopsy’s Will Putney is also involved, don’t forget, but you could argue his clearest fingerprints come in his production style rather than guitar work akin to his main band. He’s had a hand in a number of ETID albums in the past, after all, to where the raucous, swaggering yet complex and heavy sound of Better Lovers comes naturally. A White Horse Covered In Blood is basically a beat-for-beat rebuilding of their sonic framework, down to Puciato simmering his vocals down to a sleazier, wry sizzle. At other points, he’s the more Dillingerous source of Better Lovers’ makeup, with his barbed-wire shriek on the likes of Future Myopia and Superman Died Paralyzed wrapping around a riff platter already festooned with sharp, harsh angles to seem even more so.
So, yeah, Highly Irresponsible is a bit of a monster with how vicious it can be. With pieces like these, so proudly optimised in their potential for chaos, how could it not? But the beauty of Better Lovers is that they aren’t a one-trick pony either. That shouldn’t come as a shock either when neither ETID or Dillinger were, by any stretch, but it’s just nice to see that represented, as opposed to easy supergroup notions of a safe win through star power alone. Lord knows there’s been plenty of those; it’s why the term is as tainted as it is nowadays. As for Better Lovers, they can pull off something slower or more melodic—or, dare we say, even hook-heavy—without it feeling like there’s a marketing team breathing down their necks. That’s what Deliver Us From Life and At All Times are, a pair of massive swings defined by more deliberate churn that in no way feels like corner-cutting or watering down.
What’s a little crazy is how, despite a storied lineup and legacies that stack up so high, Better Lovers don’t read as some scene-defining shaker-uppers. And that, in no way, is meant with even a semblance of shade. If anything, it’s what’s coolest about Highly Irresponsible—a coalition of legends of the game that has the feel of vital, hungry upstarts making music this raucous and rowdy for the sheer enjoyment of it. Regardless of how implacable a presence that Puciato has as a frontman (even when it’s effectively leading a band as elasticated as Every Time I Die), the vibe is unquestionably there. There’s never a dull moment, nor a phoned-in one, nor one where anybody here even gestures towards losing sight of the goal.
As has become tradition with Better Lovers now, though, that’s not surprising whatsoever. At the end of the day, you’re still dealing with bulwarks of electricity and vitality from the main two parties involved, true right up until the premature demise of both’s previous projects. Better Lovers serves as a legitimately flawless nexus for both, then. Creative synergy is basically unmatched, as is the feeling that this is a band constantly striving to match the towering cumulative watermark each contributor has left. It’s a bit too soon for any definitive judgement on that, but the wheels are most definitely turning in the right way. More power to come is simply a matter of time away.
For fans of: Every Time I Die, The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Damned Things
‘Highly Irresponsible’ by Better Lovers is released on 25th October on Sharptone Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
