Better Lovers are Highly Irresponsible at Electric Brixton

Out of the ashes of metalcore heroes Every Time I Die came Better Lovers, the hardcore punk supergroup who’ve put themselves on the map with their blistering debut album Highly Irresponsible. With seven shows in eight days, this promises to be as short and sharp a tour as their sound would suggest. Each set, including tonight’s at Electric Brixton, is exactly one hour of vicious, dynamic hardcore, bristling with intensity.

Better Lovers @ Brixton Electric, 2025.01.18

Better Lovers @ Brixton Electric, 2025.01.18

There’s no breaks, save for a surreal moment when If You’re Happy And You Know It blares from the sound system. There’s no stage banter either. What we get is a show made with almost surgical precision, fourteen calculated explosions of raw hardcore that barely let up from the moment their opening mixtape jam fades to eerie chords that howl like wolves. Lie Behind The Lies blooms with easy release, a comfortable slide into moody punk that absorbs your attention from the get go. “I can’t believe that I’m just like you,” screams frontman Greg Puciato, his voice scraping like nails in a chalkboard. The jolting stormy energy that permeates Sacrificial Participant leads to an inexorable climb, gripping and grinding with moments of release and excitement, it’s melodic tension riding through bright smoke. The pit has already reached critical volume before Your Misplaced Self unfolds in a torrent of drums, with Puciato standing strong as  though navigating through a storm. Sometimes throughout their set the melodic moments are sacrificed in favour of greater intensity. The vocalist shoves the whole microphone into his mouth like a metallic gobstopper during Become So Small, his vocals breaking on release before they’re consumed by waves of bass slowed to evil.

Better Lovers @ Brixton Electric, 2025.01.18

Better Lovers @ Brixton Electric, 2025.01.18

Every song has the harshest edge that ploughs up a pit to reveal an ominous metal core, aways with a uniting rhythm proving there’s a master plan. The Flowering opens with a commanding buildup that froths and breaks until orders are whined out at the drop, leading to a hypnotic communal slam. “I don’t wanna say this isn’t a love song… but it is…” Puciato explains as At All Times drifts from the stage, slow and majestic with featherlight gliding guitar that drops rippling  chords to expand out across the hall. The respite can’t last, and At All Times goes  very hard with a fury that we love as he sweeps and conducts his hand over the crowd before unleashing a raw howl over Love Is An Act Of Rebellion’s crammed bleeding drums, regurgitating frustration into screams transmuted into an echoing call to prayer.

The best hardcore has a hypnotic quality like staring that the static dust that fills an untuned analogue TV screen. The fuzz of the distortion can take you over, allow you to lose time as you’re immersed in a heavy pool of noise. This is the quality which Better Lovers can conjure up in it’s finest form. They’re stronger than the sum of their parts, drawing on their history across punk and metalcore to create a sound that breaches the dams between sub-genres to let loose a waterfall of brutal hardcore. You’re going to regret missing out on their inaugural UK tour, if you chose to stay home this week. However, if you made it to one of their rapid fire shows and found yourselves in the surprising-civilised, all-consuming pit, then you can rejoice that you made it to the perfect heavy kickoff for 2025.

A review of Better Lovers at Electric Brixton on 18th January 2025. Words by Kate Allvey, photography by Pauline Di Silvestro