Fake History

Fake History is the second studio album by American rock band Letlive and the first written and recorded with Jason Aalon Butler (vocals), Jean Nascimento (guitar), Jeff Sahyoun (guitar), Ryan Jay Johnson (bass guitar) and Anthony Rivera (drums). Originally released on Tragic Hero Records in April 2010, it was re-released by Epitaph Records April 12, 2011, with three additional tracks.^[1]

Fake History
Studio album by Letlive
Released	April 13, 2010 (2010-04-13)
Recorded	Charlotte, North Carolina August–September 2009
Genre	Post-hardcore art punk
Length	44:58 (Original release) 56:22 (2011 re-release)
Label	Tragic Hero (2010) Epitaph (2011 re-release)
Producer	Letlive Kit Walters Brett Gurewitz
Letlive chronology
Speak Like You Talk (2005) Fake History (2010) The Blackest Beautiful (2013)

Lyrically, the band didn't write the album with a particular political stand point and wanted the album to stimulate political, emotional and intellectual awareness.^[2] Upon its re-release on Epitaph, the album received favorable reviews, generating an aggregated score of 76/100.^[3] British publication Rock Sound added Fake History into their 101 Modern Classics.^[4]

On April 13, 2020, the tenth anniversary of the album's original release, the band released a collection of demos for tracks that were eventually worked and finalised to feature on the album.^[5]

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	76/100[3]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[6]
Alternative Press	[7]
BBC Music	(very positive)[8]
Blare Magazine	[9]
PopMatters	[10]
Rock Sound	[11]
Sputnikmusic	[12]
Thrash Hits	[13]

Fake History received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 76, based on 8 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".^[3] Sputnikmusic gave Fake History a 4.5 out of 5 or "superb" rating, calling it "a post-hardcore album fit for many of 2010's best-of lists".^[12] Rock Sound magazine called it "a frenetic, hugely entertaining and inventive genre mash-up".^[11] Thrash Hits gave the album a 4 out of 6 rating, calling it "a good album but it smacks of a band struggling hard to fit their entire repertoire into one record".^[13]

In 2012, British publication Rock Sound added letlive.'s album Fake History into their 101 Modern Classics placed at number 51. They considered the album more of a classic than Queens of the Stone Age's Songs for the Deaf and Alkaline Trio's Good Mourning. Stating that "The essence of hardcore distilled by five LA lifers, ‘Fake History’ is at once a howl of vulnerability and a fuck-you-you-will-never-break-me clarion call of utter defiance. Truly, genuinely thrilling."^[4]

Track listing

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Le Prologue"	1:45
2.	"The Sick, Sick, 6.8 Billion"	3:12
3.	"Renegade 86'"	3:35
4.	"Enemies [Enemigos]"	4:56
5.	"Casino Columbus"	3:58
6.	"Muther" (feat. Chelsea Warlick)	5:40
7.	"Homeless Jazz"	3:41
8.	"We, the Pros of Con"	4:13
9.	"H. Ledger"	3:36
10.	"Over Being Under"	3:37
11.	"Day 54"	6:45
Total length:		44:58

All tracks are written by letlive.

Re-release bonus tracks

No.	Title	Length
12.	"Hollywood, and She Did"	4:00
13.	"Lemon Party"	3:59
14.	"This Mime [A Sex Symbol]"	3:25
Total length:		56:22

Personnel

• Jason Aalon Alexander Butler – lead vocals
• Ryan Jay Johnson – bass guitar
• Jean Francisco Nascimento – guitar, keyboards
• Jeff Sahyoun – guitar, backing vocals
• Anthony Rivera – drums, percussion

Production

• Kit Walters – engineer, producer