DEADLETTER - Hysterical Strength

‘Hysterical Strength’ is a shapeshifter. DEADLETTER’s debut album might convince you in the first twenty seconds of its calm, soothing nature, but that sense of gentility is quickly shattered. Instead, it’s replaced by ferocity and urgency and ever-changing tracks that leave you trailing in their wake in an attempt to keep up.

From the five-minute sprawl of intensity and hard-hitting percussion that makes up opening track ‘Credit to Treason’, the album refuses to relent. Rather, it favours dialling up the intensity to near-frenzied levels, with little room to pause and catch your breath. Tracks like ‘Practise Whilst You Preach’ and ‘Deus Ex Machina’ are complex and dark, smoke unfurling with every off-kilter guitar line. The latter lulls you into a false sense of security as it slows, before unleashing a formidable wave of sound that leaves you completely in their orbit.

‘Mother’ commands you “just forget it all and dance”, but it is ‘Relieved’ that makes you actually want to do that – groove-heavy bass, chanting vocals and a delicious battle between saxophone and guitar. It’s a high-octane, full-throttle whirlwind of a debut album that commands your attention from start to finish. DEADLETTER’s lyricism is thought-provoking and scathing in its commentary on the world around them, but on ‘Hysterical Strength’ they offer an opportunity to relieve the pressure of that and instead get lost in their spiralling, labyrinthine sound.