Like any good infection, the sound of THE DROPPER’S NECK is a relentless trespass of body and psyche. Its hooks and twists molest ears and imagination like the wall of hands working away on Catherine Deneuve in Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion”, whilst almost rabid creative shadows, lyrically and musically, entangle the listener in adventure and rewarding unpredictability. It is dark rock ‘n’ roll to savour and has been since day one of the UK band’s punk ‘n’ roll chaos.
Hailing from the county of Essex, the 2011 formed quintet, with a name taken from The Velvet Underground song ‘Heroin’, was already causing a stir in the underground with their raw and ravenous sound in a ferocious live presence when wider attention was nudged by their self-titled EP. The four track 2012 encounter revealed variety honed from everything springing between garage and alternative rock through to punk and psych temptation. In hindsight it was just the potent bed and first seeding for greater, dramatically imaginative triumphs to come, but with air ripping songs like ‘Sick’ and ‘Poor Excuse’, it left a certain imprint on fans and media ensuring The Dropper’s Neck was one to seriously watch.
Inspirations to the band’s sound are bred in the likes of bands such as The Stooges, The Cramps, The Misfits, Dead Kennedys, The Clash and The Velvet Underground, they mingling with more current creative antagonists such as Gallows, The Blood Brothers, Queens of the Stone Age, and Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster. It is the latter in that selection which most often gets held up as a clue to The Dropper’s Neck incitements, especially from the release of the band’s debut album “Second Coming”. The Paul Tipler (Placebo & Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster) produced 2013 proposal was a game changer for the band in so many ways. The five-piece rivetingly realised the early promise of their first offering but simultaneously were casting a whole new drama of new possibilities. Tracks were equipped with, in the words of The Ringmaster Review, “tyrannical and hypnotic rhythms”, “caustic noise and heavy shadows”, in “bruising bone shaking, mentally charring slices of creative ferocity.”
Songs like the addiction shaping ‘Darker Water’, serious crowd pleaser ‘Abrasive’, and the salacious temptation of ‘I Am The Law’ amongst so many, helped the release and band lure further comments; ”Menacing riffs filled with spiralling guitars and vocals that conjure up all sorts of dark feelings; leaves you screaming for more” claimed Big Cheese Magazine, ”Fantastically gloomy, with tales of wicked deeds & devilish groove ; It’s a hell of a lot of fun” shouted Classic Rock, whilst Louder Than War claimed “This is a solid, deep, dark rock album that beats the living snot out of most of what you will hear on modern rock radio.” There was no escaping a new diversity and broader exploration in the band’s sound within the album or the strong reactions and attention it reaped.
Always fuelled by a hungry appetite and intent to play live and ignite as many venues and new prospective hordes of fans as possible, the band continued to evolve fierce ideas and music, the indisputable evidence coming with the psychotic glory of ‘Line Me Up For The Firing Squad’ last year. The single was a hypnotically rabid buzz saw on the senses, fusing greater strains of noise and garage rock into the by now renowned Dropper’s Neck character. It was a new furnace of rock ‘n’ roll from the band waking up another fresh wave of attention and recognition; it also proved to be the teaser for a striking emprise of sound and invention which exploded with creative warfare on ears just a few weeks ago.
Current line-up of band originals, guitarists Chris Blake and George Barrows, and vocalist Lloyd Mathews alongside bassist Jack Turner and drummer Jamie Domo Abela unleashed their 
dirtiest, sludgiest, most aggressively provocative offering yet with the “Nineteen|Sixteen” EP. Featuring that previous single in its ranks, the almost pestilential fusion of psych and noise rock, punk and psychobilly, was a disorientating and concussive flight of sound and confrontation psychically echoing the EP’s theme of The Great War. The release took the listener with its lyrics and raw incitement through the initial ‘glamour’ of conflict, its fierce wake-up call, on to the stark aftermath which always follows conflict. “Nineteen|Sixteen” has proven to be the most challenging encounter with the band to date; songs like ‘200 Volts’, ‘Monster’ and ‘Stutter’, to just name three, aggressively uncompromising roars of invention. It has also been one of the most exciting making people stop, listen, and eagerly talk about The Dropper’s Neck.
In a year again loaded with breath-taking stage performances i across the UK and of course the uncaging of the “Nineteen|Sixteen” EP, 2015 is proving to be the time of The Dropper’s Neck, though you suspect 2016 is going to be one remarkable and major riot of chaos with the band too.
Enter the world of The Dropper’s Neck…
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