As Metallica have long known, Ennio Morricone's Ecstasy of Gold is a rousing choice of walk on music. Deadletter might not be playing the stadiums the metal giants ply their trade in, but strolling on to a near pitch black stage with music from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly booming out was a nicely theatrical opening.
The group themselves might have wished for a Clint Eastwood style lawman at points this year. While 2026 has marked the arrival of second album “Existence Is Bliss”, it also saw the theft on tour of thousands of pounds worth of equipment and gear from the Yorkshire six-piece, a challenge not easy to overcome given money is not exactly sloshing around for smaller bands these days. However, undaunted, they have regrouped and got back on the road.
There was no mention of those travails onstage, as singer Zak Lawrence tends to say little beyond the odd thank you and song introductions. His movements do the talking, as he is a lithe figure, dancing with a dash of Jagger and a smidgen of Iggy Pop. On the opening "Purity I" he was clambering over the barriers and amongst the crowd, a trick he repeated a few times during the 80 minute set.
When out there he was able to mix with both dancers and moshers, as Deadletter make music that's got enough groove for the former and abrasiveness for the latter. That combination could hit suitably hard at times, with early oldie "More Heat" fusing a thumping chant of the title with a insistent rhythm, powered by bassist George Ullyott and drummer Alfie Husband. The version of "(Back to) the Scene of the Crime" that followed shortly thereafter was even better, the sound of a decadent club at three in the morning, where the future seems rich with possibility.
The problem for Deadletter is that they don't hit those highs quite enough. There were a clutch of great songs amidst this set, but also several where the premise - a modern take on the Fall and Gang of Four - felt more exciting than the execution. It meant that for every belter like "Deus Ex Machina", snarling away with a real snap, or the catchy new wave underpinnings of “Mere Mortal”, there was the dreary post punk formula of “Songless Bird” or the bellowing “Among Us” which slipped from memory quickly.
Often covered by darkness and then briefly illuminated by blinding lights, the group themselves sounded good, and Lawrence works the stage well. It's just a sense of familiarity crept in as the night went on and it's unsurprising that one of the biggest highlights - the discordant "What the World Missed", lit up by jazzy saxophone from Nathan Pigott - played around with the band's usual template more than other new songs did.
That said, they do get it thrillingly right sometimes, as the funk-coated "Binge" that kicked off the encore proved, a terrific dancefloor friendly earworm of a track. Yet the concluding "Cheers" offered a generically noisy finale that fell short of earlier efforts. Less the Good, the Bad and the Ugly in fairness, but a case of the Good and the Merely Acceptable a little too often.
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