Album Review: Deadnotes – ‘Courage’

First time through this record and before I had read the accompanying PR, I had convinced myself that Deadnotes were some kind of American urban emo outfit, earnestly gazing into their tortured souls to find meaning in an equally tortured world. I’m happy to say that I was wrong. Deadnotes hail from Freiburg in Germany and are, by all accounts, young fellows. Neither of these attributes are obvious from the mature songs on this album. The ‘German punk’ thing is an irrelevance anyway, because the archetypal German punk that we’re familiar with on this side of the North Sea/Atlantic is the kind of very smart, very polished and often tongue in cheek kind of stuff purveyed by Die Toten Hosen and Die Ärzte. Courage is a long way from that.

So what is it? Despite the band’s desire to move away from the genre label, this is an ’emo’ record, in that it addresses issues in an emotional way. Like it or not, there is an emo stylistic sonic playbook and this album ticks most of it off. What gives Courage a step up is the quality of the song-writing, which is first class. And it sounds gorgeous. Produced by Bob Cooper (WSTR, Ducking Punches, Nervus), mixed by Beau Burchell (Saosin, The Bronx), and mastered by Mike Kalajian (Saosin, Prawn, Bouncing Souls), this is a confident and assertive album of fine songs. The production is multi-layered and full of space to give full rein to the band’s sense of dynamics. Heavy when it needs to be, this is a record that delivers a kind of restrained power. It’s in the quieter moments that the band really shine, however. The sublime I Must Have Been Blind is drenched in harmony, chiming harmonics and shimmering acoustics, all underpinned by a rumbling bass that hints that there is power there when it’s needed.

All in all, a confident and affecting collection of songs beautifully captured. Just enough quirkiness to dodge being emo 101 and bags and bags of songcraft. Recommended.

 Courage is out on 14^th February on the band’s own 22Lives Records, you can pre-order the album here