The UK and Ireland have had a slew of new post punk and art rock/punk adjacent bands emerge over the last decade, many of whom have found international success thanks to their somber melodies with a bit of a bite. One of the latest to join the fray is Deadletter, who hail from London by way of North Yorkshire and began to generate some buzz with their Heat! EP in 2022. Two years later they’ve continued to refine their approach and released Hysterical Strength, which takes an even more diverse approach to songwriting compared to its predecessor while also providing plenty of strong hooks. Where a lot of bands of this style spend most of their time focused on the drearier and darker side of things, Deadletter’s ability to hop between brighter, fun rhythms and more introspective ideas makes for a memorable listen.
Hysterical Strength does start off in a fashion that’s not uncommon for post punk, drawing you in initially with slower and brooding instrumentation but after about thirty seconds or so it opens into a faster tempo with a driving bassline and prominent saxophone. The saxophone isn’t an unusual instrument in genres like post punk, art punk, and no wave, but it’s often been used as an additional flourish or noisier element that appears at key points on some of the songs. For Deadletter this isn’t the case though, as Poppy Richler’s performances are woven into the DNA of each track and help contribute to the overall atmosphere and dynamics. When the band opts for a noisier, chaotic sound where the guitar and bass have an almost noise rock cadence with their back and forth, the saxophone has a sharper and frenetic feel, but when things shift towards softer, introspective melodies Richler follows suit. The ability for Deadletter to cover this much ground in the course of a single song is one of their biggest strengths, as they can offer the more somber and thought-provoking instrumentation similar to bands like The Murder Capital but also throw in noisier and fun, danceable numbers to shake things up. Where “Mother” has a much sadder tone, “Relieved” has a bouncier and danceable rhythm that gives off a bit more Franz Ferdinand. My favorite moments come on songs like “Deus Ex Machina” where the two halves come together, as the instrumentals initially favor soft, sparser melodies with a methodical cadence but explode into an abrasive edged and huge climax. Despite the stylistic shifts and whiplash from energetic to melancholic, the album has a seamless flow and there are specific moments that will stick with you on many of the tracks. Deadletter has left themselves with some room to expand upon some of these elements, but they’ve established an extremely strong foundation that gives listeners plenty of reasons to dig in now.
There are a lot of small details and other aspects of the instrumentation that drew me in, but Zac Lawrence’s vocal performance is what helped to set Hysterical Strength over the top. He has one of those voices that grabs you from the very first verse and pulls you in, and the energy of the singing is able to consistently match whatever the rest of the band is doing. Sometimes this comes in the form of more subdued and somber singing, where there’s a sense of sadness to both the pitch and the lyrics, but other moments bring a sense of playfulness and brighter spots. There’s that distinctly human touch to Lawrence’s work that leaves a lasting impact, and compared to some of the other post punk adjacent artists that have a more detached and abstract approach I find that I gravitate more towards bands like Deadletter. While there aren’t any bad moments so to speak, on the vocal front “Mother”, “Relieved”, and “Deus Ex Machina” have some of my favorite passages and have been stuck in my head since those first few listens. “Relieved” is also a great example of where the gang vocals and other backing ranges come in to amp up the energy level just a bit more.
Post punk/art punk adjacent bands are everywhere right now, and while a lot of them are touching on a very specific side and time period of that genre it’s always exciting to come across groups trying to push outwards and capture something just a bit different. Deadletter’s debut does that through its incorporation of the saxophone as a key instrument and the interplay between the somber and playful, and while it’s pulling from a different set of influences it’s had a similar impact on me as The Murder Capital’s debut did back in 2019. The more I listen the more this album has to give, but there are still plenty of additional directions Deadletter could choose to go in by the time a follow-up rolls around and that makes them an act that will be genuinely exciting to follow in the coming years. Hysterical Strength is available from SO Recordings.
-Review by Chris Dahlberg