SharpTone Records
October 25
I feel as though before I commence this debut album Highly Irresponsible review by Better Lovers I must preface it by stating that in my humble, honest and 100% correct assertion (just ask me, and I’ll tell you!) that everything Greg Puciato touches or is involved in is always WITHOUT QUESTION near to absolute perfection!
I fell into his 2004 debut with TDEP Miss Machine by accident through a work colleague, and I was immediately drawn and would later become addicted to his voice and lyric writing; his entire work was and still is intoxicating!
Later, and ongoing to this day, it would become that I felt drawn to listen to his voice daily. Aside from Devin Townsend (whom I also cite as a massive presence in my existence) Puciato’s catalogue of audio brilliance is without equal. The Dillinger Escape Plan, the supergroups Killer Be Killed, The Black Queen, solo collaborations with Jerry Cantrell and now the out of nowhere Better Lovers. Some would cite Better Lovers as a supergroup also. Formed after Everytime I Die disbanded starring Jordan Buckley on guitar, Stephen Micciche on bass and Clayton Holyoak on drums as well as featuring the guitar brilliance of deathcore legends Fit For An Autopsy’s Will Putney, with, as I mentioned Puciato on vocals, what could possibly go wrong with the imminent creation of this brutal beast? NOTHING…Like Killer Be Killed before them!
Following much of Puciato’s various social media pages, a random email came in one morning a year and a half ago with the subject title something along the lines of “well who saw that coming!” and it was a link to the first Better Lovers single 30 Under 13 from the God Made Me An Animal EP in 2023. And I, as well as many of you reading this, were immediately thrown into a sense of orgasmic chaotic ecstasy. Fuck, what a song, huh?
And now here we are, just a mere sixteen or so months into the birth of Better Lovers that they are about to gift to us all their debut album Highly Irresponsible and what a blissful angry treasure it is.
In the time it took me to write this intro, I have already listened to Highly Irresponsible again for the umteenth time. Another near perfect creation forged in the fires of Greg Puciato’s already seamless existence, backed by the aggressive chronic force of past Everytime I Die members.
Honestly I think this is the path of least resistance yet most comfortable brutal force that Puciato needs right now but also excels at the most. The beauty of Highly Irresponsible is that it combines all of Greg’s harshest angry elements from projects past with a new band to fill a void that has been evident since the demise of The Dillinger Escape Plan.
All the classic Everytime I Die and Greg Puciato melancholic elements find a prescription for existence in Better Lovers, which begins from the opener Lie Between The Lies and just gets angrier leading into track two the short sharp one and half-minute long Your Misplaced Self. The former is a heavy, dirty, groove laden slab of panic and eases us into the full album. Where the latter unrelentingly pummels us beautifully. This will definitely be a crowd shaker!
A White Horse Covered In Blood is a fat thumping bass-driven tune resembling a song that is the soundtrack to road rage – ‘Gonna Be Hard to Handle When You Melt Down!’… what a fucking lyric! And the album is full of cranking one-liners I gotta say.
Future Myopia has the classic signs of Killer Be Killed at their most magical, with riffs that won’t quit. I promise you all that Highly Irresponsible is absolutely one of the Top 5 albums of 2024 that will make your harsh adulting everyday life calmer and complete, even at its most gracious destructiveness. I just can not stop injecting it into my ears.
Almost halfway through the album comes Deliver Us From Life, a calming interlude without that blasting panic and hatred pouring from previous songs, but in no way reduces the further punishing impacts any of the outcomes we hear on Highly Irresponsible later.
Drowning In A Burning World reawakens the senses within us and promises to bring a crowd surely seeing Better Lovers live soon, into a body contorting mega-beast with bloodied smashed limbs colliding and celebrating the existence of the magnificent wonder that is Better Lovers!
While Highly Irresponsible isn’t perfect, it is fucking damn close to being so, and I both love it and can not get enough of it! I told you … Just ask me. 🤣
With any luck, we here at HEAVY will have the privilege of chatting to Greg to pick his magnificent mind on all things Better Lovers, why they are so highly irresponsible and what makes this album so necessary in today’s ugly world.
⭐⭐⭐⭐½
