Better Lovers were born from the ashes of a wreck. At the resounding dissolution of Every Time I Die, several of its members gathered around Greg Puciato, former singer of the cult band The Dillinger Escape Plan, to give life to this new project. The filiation is prestigious, and Highly Irresponsible, their first full album, keeps the promises of such a cast.
The critics hail the record (an 82 average across eight reviews), saluting the perfect meeting of Dillinger’s chaotic mathcore and Every Time I Die’s raging hardcore. The result is a nervy, unpredictable music, shot through with an energy that never seems bound to subside.
Everything here breathes urgency. The angular riffs twist in every direction, the rhythms deliberately derail, and Puciato’s voice — one of the most expressive of the scene — moves from scream to melody with confounding ease. The raw, direct production captures this rage without ever domesticating it.
One might reproach the album for a form of monochromy in intensity: by constantly playing flat out, Better Lovers leave little room to breathe, and the whole ends up saturating the ear. The record lacks those tipping moments that would give the chaos its full power of contrast. The fury here is self-sufficient — for better and sometimes for excess.
Verdict: 8/10. A ferocious, living record carried by musicians at their peak. A jubilant rebirth, if not a fully mastered one.
