Featured image and gallery: Gracie Hall

With the streets of Manchester’s Northern Quarter packed with festive revellers, Band On The Wall offers a temporary respite from the premature seasonal celebrations. Debut album ‘Hysterical Strength’ in tow, Yorkshire born DEADLETTER have garnered an avid following in the Northern reaches of England, broadcasting their infusion of post-punk and jazz rock to a room packed well and truly to the rafters.

Support on the evening comes from alternative outfit Velvetine, handling the occasion with a commendable air of self-assurance. Having released only a smattering of their works to the clutches of the internet, the London based quartet attack each song with invigorating conviction. Dressed in ashen overcoats and gothic knitwear, the band fixes the early comers with a piercing gaze, wryly accepting their voracious plaudits. The four piece share a touching embrace before exiting stage left, a messy tangle of leather jacket straps and loose guitar leads. 

There’s a gnawing restlessness amongst the crowd that grows ever more agitating in the moments preceding the laboured arrival of DEADLETTER. Evidently the six-piece are in no rush of their own, slinking from behind the curtain almost a quarter of an hour after the advertised time.

You’d be a stickler to chastise them for their tardiness; DEADLETTER have been treading a weary path between gigs across mainland Europe in recent weeks. Boasting a calendar with more than 30 dates pencilled in, tonight’s offering is one of two sold out shows on the UK leg of the ‘Hysterical Strength’ tour.

Vocalist Zac Lawrence sports a tousled moptop and equips himself with a tambourine he bashes frantically as he scurries to grasp the microphone stand. Dressed for the gig preamble in a neatly styled shirt tucked in at the waist, Lawrence is now bare chested, his patchwork torso tattoos on display under the stage lights. Opener ‘Credit To Treason’, taken from the band’s debut album, rumbles with an unrelenting industrial barrage, accentuated by bassist George Ullyot. 

Lawrence flexes his songwriting chops early in proceedings, his lyrics often doubling as mantras or affirmations. “Love thy neighbour!” implores the frontman throughout the angular choruses of ‘The Snitching Hour’. A cunning wordsmith, Lawrence has a penchant for dissecting the phonetics of a stanza in order to recreate, or otherwise reiterate, its meaning. His tormented demeanour manifests in irrepressible outbursts, casting a restless shadow that looks to be at the mercy of a maniacal puppeteer. 

DEADLETTER have no end of creative techniques with which they cultivate unique, abrasive soundscapes; guitarist Will King puts his instrument through rigorous torture, causing it to wail and screech, while ‘Mother’ is awash with aching swathes of saxophone, akin to the considered intricacy of ‘Bygones’. Lawrence melodically bombards the audience with a furious monologue during ‘Practice Whilst You Preach’, tackling his grievances with religion and interior furnishings: “The least you can do is shut the fucking window,” he grovels.

An enthralled onlooker goes airborne on the shoulders of a peer whilst reciting the jaunty verses of ‘Relieved’, prompting a chuckle into the microphone from bassist Ullyot. Intent on joining the stunt, Lawrence launches himself atop a canopy of outstretched arms, gracefully crowd surfing half the length of the audience. Antagonising the masses furthermore by infiltrating the jaws of an impending moshpit, Lawrence soon takes refuge back on stage, orchestrating set closers ‘Binge’ and ‘It Flies’ armed with a cowbell. “We always know we’re going to have a good time in Manchester,” he comments.

Few bands can produce such a unique racket as DEADLETTER; the sextet stake a claim for having unearthed a truly idiosyncratic sound with just the one album to show for it. Rehashing their material to be performed live demonstrates the band’s cutting edge, an intricately ordered sonic rapture best experienced by the naked ear. Crowing a catalogue that has earned coveted festival slots and a headline tour across the continent and beyond, DEADLETTER find themselves on the rise from strength to hysterical strength.

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