Nick Barker is one of Australia's most-loved artists and one of our finest songwriters, having written songs with Paul Kelly, Jimmy Barnes, Mick Thomas, Tim Rogers and Felicity Urquhart.

Exoskeleton – which comes 35 years after Barker's first single with the Reptiles – is his first solo album in 14 years, following two albums with The Heartache State. It's a collection of songs about people who have hard outer layers but are soft inside, love and loss, death and family, and scars that never heal.