Nape Neck – Nape Neck – It was only that curiosity that never killed the cat that took us to Nape Neck, a chance passing of a Facebook event page that told us they were playing with the excellent Terms somewhere in the U.S had us wondering who they were? A rather spiky rather urgent band from over here so it seems, from Leeds if the internet is telling us the truth, they’re sharing a bill together in St.Louis, The Conformists are also on the bill that happens on September 26th.
Right now curiosity has taken us to a self-titled Nape Neck album that came out in March of this year, who are these people? Where have they been? Where The Gate is brilliant, the whole album is! This is what we want, this is refreshing, that multi-layered onslaught on vocals, more of a persistent peck than an onslaught, too clever to just be an onslaught, this is like the pigeons at tea time, like Dog Faced Hermans going off and things. An art punk trio if we need to put them in a lazy box and we really don’t, they’re not that. And I really don’t want to have to think about this or write about yet another album. I reckon I must have wriiten well over ten thousand album reviews by now, I just want to enjoy this one…
“In the very first year of the doomed 2020s, the Leeds, UK-based art-punk trio Nape Neck made their debut with a self-titled/self-released cassette, featuring eight absolutely visceral tracks that held a mirror up to the anxieties and tensions of our hellish timeline and then shattered it on the ground. The five-song tape that followed it, 2022’s Look Alive, was an even more concise statement of intent, hitting like a head-on collision between the razor-edged clang and clamor of the Ex or Dog Faced Hermans and the untamed neo-no wave jabbing and scrabbling of the Scissor Girls and Erase Errata”
And that is about right, The Ex, Scissor Girls, Raincoats, Ut, it is a challenging set of post-punk no-wave whatevers, it is all that falling upstairs and staying gloriously in control and yes, sorry we weren’t paying attention back then, we clearly need to now, better late than never ever never, never heard of them unti ltoday, brilliant!
“This new LP collects all of the material from those two cassettes on vinyl for the first time (deservedly so; better late than never), and every single song is just as thrilling now as it was on first listen — if you weren’t paying attention then, you really need to be now. Bobby Glew’s guitar is strangled Andy Gill-style, splintering the taut, locked-in rhythms from bassist Claire Adams and drummer Kathy Gray with shards of serrated noise. Each member of the band contributes vocals, with their lines crossing and overlapping in a highly coordinated exchange of calls and responses. “No Platforming” and “Paperweight” communicate in a series of desperate shouts and clipped Morse code beats, while clattering mutant funk cowbell punctuates the spiralling scratch of “Demonstrations,” and “Aim Slow” tumbles through a rapid cycle of needling guitar and staccato bass throb, as “Warm Air” and “Look Alive” slash and burn like DNA if they’d been a Ron Johnson band. A total knockout — the first half of this decade belonged to Nape Neck, and chances are that the second half will be all theirs, too.” – Erika Elizabeth, Maximum Rock n’ roll/Domestic Departure Records/Collate
And yes, we blatantly ‘borrowed’ Erika Elizabeth’s words there and we couldn’t have put it better (thanks Erika) and look at what they made and hey, we can’t be everywhere at once and just listen to that punchy start the whole thing, that start has you standing and then sitting and then standing again as those guitar lines urgently scratch at you as the excellent rhythm section drive things along with such colour. It is splintering, it is taut, it is wonderful!, This that classic thing you only get with a three piece. I love this, the pigeons love it, the next door neighbour is going to have to learn to love it, all the warm air and everything else. This is a vital compilation of tracks from the band’s two cassettes that date from 2020 and 2022 all now re-mixed and re-mastered for vinyl and every urgent pulsating moment of it so so alive with everything! Brilliant, every single bit of it! Love it. We almost missed it, don’t let that happen to you. (sw)
Bobby – guitar, vocals
Claire – bass, vocals
Kathy – drums, vocals
previously on these pages –
Hang on, here’s some rather impressive Nape Neck footage…
And….
And….
THE ORGAN 