Better Lovers, a band that didn’t even exist just 16 months ago, and have rapidly risen to prominence with two blistering tours across North America and a pair of overseas treks, playing for sold-out crowds and featuring prominently on 2024’s most prestigious European festivals, release their debut album,Highly Irresponsible, on Oct. 25 via SharpTone Records.
A preview of the eagerly-awaited debut comes today with the release of “A White Horse Covered in Blood,” along with its Eric Richter-produced video. Guitarist Jordan Buckley humorously shares, “Playing and hearing our own music makes us want to run through walls. So we made a video where, while playing and hearing our own music, we run through walls. This ain’t rocket surgery!”
Discussing the album, Jordan continues, “Writing and recording our first full length was slightly more surgical than the EP, but had a similar lack of restraint. I feel more pressure writing this press release than I felt all winter in Will’s studio. I got to wake up everyday and watch the masters perfect their craft. I was a student. It was a playground. Everything was funny. We were reading each other’s minds. Even creating our own language at some points. I didn’t know if I was watching my closest friends write music, or if I was watching music use us to exist. The voice in my head warning me how highly irresponsible it was to hop on this bull again was gone. Replaced by bad ideas, inside jokes, and a rejuvenated love for helping to write songs that don’t sound like anything else. Humans and animals alike are programmed to do wild things for what they love. Highly irresponsible things. And we love what we’ve created. We know you will too.”
Greg Puciato adds: “New album. First full length. It’s a typical thing to say, but we’re excited to start getting this out there. Everyone really brought their best to the album, and brought out the best in each other, and that goes for everyone behind-the-scenes too. I’m honestly just over here happy that I fit the word ‘buddy’ into a song.”
Recorded this Spring, Highly Irresponsible benefits from the dual role of Will Putney, who, besides being one of the band’s guitarists, also brings his production skills to the album. Putney explains, “Being a member of the band and the producer is actually a real advantage for Better Lovers. We’re so dialed in to exactly what we want to do, and our creative process is so in sync and natural that we rarely hit a wall when we work on music. My role is to capture the energy of the band the way it’s intended to sound: a band firing on all cylinders.”
The band released their debut single “30 Under 13” in the Spring of 2023, followed by the four-song God Made Me An Animal EP that Summer. In December they launched an annual holiday event, BLissmas, which has already sold out in back-to-back years. In the short time since their inception, Better Lovers have traversed North America twice and played a spate of sold-out European shows and festivals. Consequence said the band “lives up to its billing,” Revolver said Better Lovers’ music features a “patented mix of mathcore spasms and… swagger,” while Kerrang! declared, “Better Lovers energy isn’t just angry. It’s explosive. It’s excitement. It’s primal.”