Album Review: Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders - Playmates

Long anointed by many as voice most likely, the arching croon of Jack Ladder has come close, not the least with his last album, the aptly, if punning, titled Hurtsville.

Playmates could be the breakthrough, the perhaps surprising added element, the presence of The Presets’ Kim Moyes as producer. Not only has he provided rich electronic beds for Ladder’s words to tangle in their sweat-soaked sheets, Moyes also knows some musical touchstones for the singer to work from. There are nods to early ‘80s references like Roxy Music and Berlin-era Iggy. The even more languorous Our Ascension or Slow Boat To China, have David Sylvian’s Japan present in their lush flows. And there is some of that melodrama that can only be described as Nick Cave-ian: A touch of obsession, some bloodletting, an occasional crucifixion – the plea of Let Me Love You or “I’ll set myself on fire”.

There’s a new clarity in his storytelling. The tumbling imagery and narrative of Come On Back This Way, or the almost Springsteen hook of To Keep And To Be Kept – with its own little glories of Sharon Van Etten’s second voice, and Jason Walker’s high plains pedal steel in the distance – are of approachable emotion, where once you maybe weren’t sure how much tongue was in how much cheek.

But it all comes back to that voice: It can be a conspiratorial whisper, an ache in the dark, a desperate need. Playmates presents it with the respect it’s owed.