The Necks - Body (2018)

Australia’s greatest cult band, The Necks, has a new piece to offer the world this summer, entitled “Body”. Different again to all previous Necks albums (20 in total), the band has chosen 10 words and phrases that summarize the four richly contrasting episodes of this hour-long, mesmerizing groove. They are as follows: Episodic, Driving, Dynamic, Layered, Celebratory, Soaring, Rocking out, Buoyant, Sustained, Perfectly paced.

The album uses, yet again, the combination of Chris Abrahams (piano, keyboards) Tony Buck (drums, percussion, and guitar very much to the fore on this one) and Lloyd Swanton (acoustic bass) with Tim Whitten (engineer), who has recorded and/or mixed the last twelve Necks albums. The Necks hold their own with the best of them when it comes to rhythmic complexity, but they have put much of that to one side for this album in the interests of conjuring their most relentlessly driving album since "Hanging Gardens".