Every Time I Die - Last Night in Town

Every Time I Die announced themselves with Last Night in Town, a 2001 debut full-length that sounds like a bar fight breaking out in the middle of a hardcore show.

The Buffalo band, led by brothers Keith and Jordan Buckley, had already released an EP before signing to Ferret Music. For their first album they headed to Zing Studios in Massachusetts with producer Adam Dutkiewicz of Killswitch Engage, who helped capture the frantic, unpredictable chaos of their early live sets.

Emergency Broadcast Syndrome opens in a frenzy of jagged riffs and screamed vocals, and Punch-Drunk Punk Rock Romance adds a backing vocal turn from Howard Jones. Jimmy Tango's Method and The Logic of Crocodiles show off Keith Buckley's knack for wry, literate lyrics hidden inside the noise, a trait that would become the band's calling card.

The guitars lurch between dissonant stabs and sudden, swinging grooves, while the rhythm section keeps everything barely on the rails. It is rougher than the records that followed, and that rawness is exactly what gives it such a thrilling, reckless edge.

Every Time I Die called it a day in 2022, leaving this debut as the first chapter of a fiercely loved catalogue, now back on vinyl for longtime fans and a new generation discovering them.