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Jun 20, 201240Ultimately, it's good to know they're out there straining every nerve, vein and eyeball, even if those who'll want to listen to it more than twice are surely few. [Jun 2012, p.101]
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Jun 1, 201260Flats look to be stranded between hipster grunge and true hardcore. [Jul 2012, p.71]
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May 2, 201240Much of Better Living recalls that time when the ugly end of post-Crass anarcho punk segued into the metallic sounds of grindcore... when melody seemed bourgeois and energy was the most valued commodity. [May 2012, p.92]
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May 2, 201280Capped with Dan Devine's vocals – a scream as angry as it is distraught – this is despair with a backbeat, and punk as it should be: courageously self-destructive.
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May 15, 201280In sticking two fingers up at both their detractors and Dalston, they've crafted one of the most viscerally engaging British rock albums in years.
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May 2, 201260As opening statements go, Better Living is comprehensive and, as a hardcore punk album, it is extremely successful.
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May 29, 201270Better Living, Flats' 34-minute debut album, is a commendably cacophonous outpouring which contains not the slightest germ of future commercial gold.
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Jun 6, 201240As loud and aggressive Flats can sound it can't come close to hiding a lack of pretty much everything other than extreme volume and misplaced nothing-better-to-do-than-have-a-go-at-everyone-else small-minded aggression.
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May 21, 201260The fury here comes from an ominous intensity and oppressive claustrophobia. And that makes this album raw, anarchic, bleak and enjoyably nasty. [45 May 2012, p.53]
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May 2, 201260Raw, exhilarating and completely mystifying.
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Jul 2, 201270Better Living remains a repetitive, tonally monotonous album. But its a repetitiousness which works to further evoke a life of spirit-crushing routine, while reinforcing the idea of a permanent headache.