DEADLETTER are today announcing their debut album Hysterical Strength (13th September via SO Recordings) and sharing lead single ‘Mere Mortal’ alongside a raft of new UK and EU headline tour dates.
‘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 saxophone that together forge a song full of intention from the embers of personal tragedy, after the suicide of a close friend. Produced by famed British producer 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.
Lead singer Zac Lawrence says about the song: "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."
More about DEADLETTER and debut album Hysterical Strength
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 life-long friends Alfie Husband and George Ullyott, and 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 twelve tracks of motorik rhythms and angular guitars, adorned by smoky saxophone and baritone-belted lyrics about flickering television sets and dilapidated town centres decked with decapitated bodies. Its strengths are hysterical indeed.
In their short time releasing music the band has picked up support from the likes of BBC Radio 1, Clash, DIY, Dork, Kerrang!, Metro, NME, So Young, The Times, and also landed on the 6 Music playlist. They've sold out shows across the UK and Europe and in October 2024 will begin their biggest headline run to date.
DEADLETTER are:
Alfie Husband - Drums
George Ullyott - Bass
Poppy Richler - Saxophone
Sam Jones - Guitar
Will King - Guitar
Zac Lawrence – Vocals
