One of the year’s most highly-anticipated debut albums, Better Lovers’ Highly Irresponsible arrives Oct. 25 via SharpTone Records, and in the lead-up, the band – comprised of Jordan Buckley, Goose Holyoak, Stephen Micciche, Greg Puciato, and Will Putney – has offered up a second preview with today’s release of “Future Myopia” (https://youtu.be/buhX7go8eQ8).
“Not that all of them weren’t, but this one was a lot of fun to write,” Greg Puciato says of the explosive track. “The bass-centric part in the back half of the song is one of my favorite moments on the whole record. Shout out to big Mitch. Same with the riff that comes after it. There were a lotta fun pitches to hit/alley-oops to catch for me in this one. Chorus took me a minute so that was a nice puzzle to figure out too. It’s been a joy writing with these guys and having so much different stuff thrown at me.”
Better Lovers first previewed the new album news with the release of “A White Horse Covered in Blood,” a single Knotfest praised as “an auspicious start” that “sets the bar high for what’s to come” from the band. Consequence lauded the track’s ability to find “a satisfying sweet spot between thrash metal and hardcore,” while MetalSucks called its Eric Richter-directed video “loud, heavy, and incredibly fun.”
“Writing and recording our first full-length was slightly more surgical than the EP, but has a similar lack of restraint,” Jordan Buckley shared upon news of the album’s forthcoming release. “I got to wake up every day and watch the masters perfect their craft. 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.”
Producer and band member Will Putney added: “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.”
Album pre-orders, including limited-edition vinyl variants, CDs, and digital pre-saves, are available now: https://bfan.link/highly-irresponsible.
Better Lovers embark on their first North American tour in support of the album on Nov. 3. Tickets for all dates are on-sale now via betterloversband.com, with openers including Full of Hell (Nov. 3 to Dec. 2), SPY, Cloakroom and Gouge Away (Dec. 4 to Dec. 8). December 14 is the band’s now annual BLissmas extravaganza and also includes performances from Converge, Freshwater, Twitching Tongues, Dying Wish, Teenage Wrist, Anxious, Atomic Rule and wrestling presented by The Butcher Andy Williams. A U.K. tour launches the new year, with openers Frontierer and Greyhaven joining the band for their January run.
Tour dates:
September 21 Worcester, MA New England Metal & Hardcore Festival
November 3 Asheville, NC The Orange Peel
November 4 Charleston, SC The Music Farm
November 5 Orlando, FL The Abbey
November 6 Tampa, FL The Orpheum
November 8 Charlotte, NC The Underground
November 9 Richmond, VA Canal Club
November 10 Baltimore, MD Baltimore Soundstage
November 11 Philadelphia, PA Union Transfer
November 13 Millvale, PA Mr. Smalls
November 14 Toronto, ON Opera House
November 15 Ottawa, ON Bronson Centre
November 16 Montreal QC Theatre Fairmount
November 17 Brooklyn, NY Warsaw
November 19 Detroit, MI The Magic Stick
November 20 Chicago, IL The Metro
November 21 Minneapolis, MN Lyric @ Skyway
November 23 Denver, CO The Summit
November 24 Salt Lake City, UT The Complex
November 26 Seattle, WA The Crocodile
November 27 Portland, OR Wonder Ballroom
November 29 Berkeley, CA The UC Theatre
November 30 Santa Ana, CA The Observatory
December 1 Los Angeles, CA The Regent
December 2 Mesa, AZ The Nile
December 4 Dallas, TX Studio at The Factory
December 5 Oklahoma City, OK Beer City Music Hall
December 6 Lawrence, KS Granada Theater
December 7 St. Louis, MO Delmar Hall
December 8 Lakewood, OH The Roxy
December 14 Buffalo, NY BLissmas
January 17 Bristol, UK Marble Factory
January 18 London, UK Electric Brixton
January 19 Manchester, UK Manchester Academy 2
January 20 Glasgow, Scotland Slay
January 22 Newcastle, UK The Grove
January 23 Leeds, UK Project House
January 24 Birmingham, UK O2 Institute2