THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The world is brutal, but there are cherry trees in blossom. This is the philosophy that underpins Deadletter, and their bruising, beautiful debut album Hysterical Strength.
“It’s punishing but there’s also fucking beauty out there,” explains frontman Zac Lawrence, who, with lifelong friends Alfie Husband and George Ullyott, plus bandmates Poppy Richler, Sam Jones and Will King, may just have turned in one of 2024’s most urgent and vital listens — a record that, right down to its title, relishes the contradictions of modern life. “Being able to take something disgusting or disgraceful and make it sound nice through the power of music, that juxtaposition appeals to me,” Lawrence adds. The result is 12 tracks of motorik rhythms and angular guitars, adorned by smoky saxophone and baritone-belted lyrics about flickering TVs and dilapidated town centres decked with decapitated bodies.
Mere Mortal makes for some introduction to the band’s debut album proper. Contorting, elastic basslines and stuttering, angular guitar motifs are punctuated with impulsive sax that together forge a song full of intention from the embers of personal tragedy, after the suicide of a close friend. Produced by famed Brit Jim Abbiss (Arctic Monkeys, Adele), it’s a model introduction to an album of exploratory art-punk that brews malevolent atmospheres and searches darkened corridors for clarity amongst the cacophony of chaos.
Says Lawrence: “Though Mere Mortal was written in the wake of personal tragedy, its intention is not to convey the sentiment of subjective grief, but to act as an undoubtedly relatable tale of loss and longing for all those who themselves have been faced with and have had to navigate the confusing, painful landscape that bereavement leaves one confronted by.”
Deadletter formed at the start of 2020, days before the pandemic struck. They became one of the most talked-about bands of 2023 via their critically acclaimed EP Heat! Hysterical Strength has style, swagger and tunes you will want to put on repeat. Bound together by a recognition of frenetic energy and rhythm, leaving any wider ideological goal open to interpretation by the listener, their debut album heralds the next level.”
