Reviewed on Thursday November 13
Back in 2011, when Jack Ladder was touring his third album Hurtsville, the two guys either side of him onstage were chiefly recognised as members of his band The Dreamlanders. Fast-forward to the launch of Ladder’s gut-punching new LP Playmates, and these two men – guitarist Kirin J Callinan and bass player Donny Benet – have become veritable cult figures.
But even with the added might of drummer Laurence Pike (PVT) and keyboardist Neal Sutherland (ex-Bertie Blackman), this was Ladder’s show all the way. More to the point, the stars of the show were Ladder’s songs and his bass-tempting baritone.
People tend not to be casual fans of Jack Ladder. There’s not a whole lot of, ‘Oh yeah, he’s alright.’ Rather, his followers have signed on the dotted line, pledging allegiance, ashes to ashes, fun to funky. ‘Funky’ is an apt way to describe latest single ‘Her Hands’, which came early in the set. It was one of several Playmates cuts to get an airing, many featuring a similarly devilish essence. The record appears to be synth-driven, but it turns out a lot of these sounds are miraculously cooked up in Callinan’s guitar effects lab.
Callinan’s guitar work has been a major influence on Ladder’s latest two records. Shortly after releasing 2008’s Love Is Gone, Ladder and Callinan performed a series of duo gigs. Anyone who was at one of those gigs will attest to having witnessed something shocking. Featuring drum programming and K.O. punches of guitar noise, it was clear Ladder and his new offsider were making a seismic direction shift. By the time Hurtsville rolled around, Ladder had learned to put his bandmate’s eccentric skill towards enhancing a collection of heartbreaking, and mostly heartbroken, songs. Tonight, that album’s title track brought the room to a total standstill. Drenched in levitating guitars, it was seven minutes of rumbling emotion – luring you in with quotidian details (“I’ll flip the burgers while you work the till”), then placing you smack-bang in the middle of the action.
Ladder towered over the room. In a certain light, he’s poster-boy handsome. But there’s no escaping that he’s an unusual being, which helps background the singularity of his songwriting perspective. He seemed to become increasingly defeated by melancholy as the gig progressed, which suggested that going through the emotional tension of his songs doesn’t get any easier.
It wasn’t until the encore that we heard anything from Love Is Gone. ‘The Barber’s Son’ retained its backbeat, while the night’s final triumph ‘Case Closed’ was remodelled into a slick ’80s ballad, a soothing send-off from a nonpareil artist.
