By challenging each other to progress, Better Lovers challenge heavy music to move forward along with them. Driven by the same restless spirit and clear intention, this cohort of longtime musicians have rallied around a shared vision of creative fearlessness and relentless energy. Playing with a chemistry bordering on magic, the musicians—Greg Puciato [vocals], Jordan Buckley [guitar], Will Putney [guitar, producer], Steve Micciche [bass], and Clayton “Goose” Holyoak [drums]—naturally evolve on their 2024 full-length debut album, Highly Irresponsible [Sharptone Records]. Puciato keeps it simple, “New album. First full-length. It’s a typical thing to say, but we’re excited to start getting this thing out there. Everyone really brought their best to this and brought out the best in each other.” It’s been that way since the winter of 2022 when longtime friends Jordan, Steve, and Goose congregated in a cold Buffalo, NY basement to jam, sowing the seeds for early song ideas. They initially tapped Will to produce (he also jumped at the chance to play guitar), while Greg officially joined the fold upon hearing demos. Without warning in 2023, the group made their presence known with “30 Under 13” followed by the God Made Me An Animal EP. Metal Hammer christened the latter “one of the finest examples of savage modern hardcore you’ll hear in 2023.” Inciting further critical applause, Revolver raved, “they attack like a fresh, hungry band out for blood. Which is what they are,” and KERRANG! profiled them with a cover story. Not to mention, they sold out the bulk of dates on their very first tour. They capitalized upon and catalyzed this momentum into Highly Irresponsible. Putney resumed his role as producer, and the bandmates ignited ten tracks with calculated intensity. Putney notes, “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.” “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.  That brings us to the first single “A White Horse Covered In Blood.” Gritty guitar rolls in tandem with a punchy drumbeat, and Puciato teasingly warns, “Oh, there’s nowhere to run to buddy.” He delivers manic taunts with insidious charisma matched only by the wild dueling riffing across the bridge. “I’m honestly just over here happy that I fit the word ‘buddy’ into a song,” the frontman grins. Elsewhere, high-pitched squeals drain into a rollicking riff on “Future Myopia.” The melodic chant on the chorus belies menace in the lyrics as Puciato proclaims, “Hard to look up when you’re down. No perspective from the ground.” Eerie guitar echoes over a loose bass groove on the spacey “At All Times.” Simultaneously, an arresting vocal performance takes hold, “We corrected the lines we drew. Didn’t we?” Opener “Lie Between The Lines” leans into a sinister melodic lead before culminating on a realization, “I can’t believe I’m just like you.” The finale “Love As An Act of Rebellion” might just be the perfect clarion call for the quintet. The breakneck beatdown and tense ticking clock give way to Puciato’s last word, “In a world where we’re the only. I’d still take life without you. I’d still be lost without you.” Better Lovers found each other, and they’re going to keep pushing each other and heavy music forward. “This is a band firing on all cylinders that is both dynamic and destructive,” Putney leaves off. “That translates through the speakers on this LP, and I can’t wait for people to experience the whole record.” Buckley smiles, “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.”

“We’re Soul Blind, from the Hudson Valley,” is how the set starts. And the band makes good on that threat from the first note. Thick, pedal-drenched, and aggressive, Soul Blind take the heaviest elements of their hardcore roots and cut it with Modern Rock. The songs you heard in your dad’s truck are run through the unforgiving filter of the music that drew you to punk and metal. Crowbar and Stone Temple Pilots. All Out War into Tad. It’s all there, because Soul Blind doesn’t try to hide what shaped them. The result is music for the freaks. Non-denominational subculture weirdo tracks. It’s the sound of living in the shadow of NYC and never feeling jealous. The sound of proudly standing on the shoulders of local giants who never got their due. The sound of being four reprobates with nothing to offer the world but music. In other words, a real band.

Johnny Booth is a metalcore band from Long Island and Oneonta, NY, known for fusing hardcore, mathcore, and post-hardcore with raw precision. Their latest single, “Get Well Soon,” dropped May 2, 2025. They join the Bad Luck World Tour starting July 22 in Toronto and appear at the New England Metal & Hardcore Fest on Sept 27.