ALBUM REVIEW: Neck Deep – Neck Deep
Nostalgia is a lot like a warm hug on a winter’s day from your mum. You know the kind that keeps you cosy in the coldest months, and stays in your memory long after the moment happens. It’s why all these album tours are popping up all over the place; they’re the warm hugs we’ve been waiting for. For the princes of Welsh pop-punk, NECK DEEP, nostalgia was the booster shot they needed. With debut album Wishful Thinking turning ten this year, going back to basics on their self-titled fifth album is a course-correction after their nose-dive into indie-leaning postmodern concept records on 2020’s All Distortions Are Intentional.
Opening duo Dumbstruck Dumbf**k and Sort Yourself Out crack open like a crisp can of lager on a hot summer’s day. Everything you’ve ever loved about NECK DEEP is present and correct: there’s the soaring festival-sized sing-alongs made for belting out with your best ones; there’s the groovy guitars that get you cutting shapes like you’re raving it up at Creamfields; and the big-bop drums that drive along melodies like an army of earworms marching into your cranium. The only difference? It all sounds bigger than ever.
For the first time since their debut, bassist Seb Barlow pulls double duty, self-producing their self-titled effort. It’s clear from the sheer joy found sonically in songs like Go Outside! and They May Not Mean To (But They Do) — the kind that literally send you swimming back to the shores of those unforgettable summers gone by with skull-invading melodies and more grooves than a record spinning at 78rpm — that NECK DEEP are enjoying the freedom of making music for the sake of making it.
On the surface, self-titled sounds like swallowing serotonin straight into your veins and overdosing on it. Dig a little deeper into its nuances, and listen a little closer to its lyrics, and you’ll land yourself on a journey of changing minds. Sort Yourself Out’s social media caption-in-waiting “I could buy you flowers but it never fucking works” pours pessimism out like a cold cup of coffee on a Monday morning; but by the time you tap into closer Moody Weirdo’s “You’ve got to take one small step everyday / Don’t fight the change, just say what you have to say / Ride your own wave, soak up the rain / Make way for the hurricane”, you’re loaded with the optimism of 5 o’clock on a Friday.
What sets self-titled apart from NECK DEEP’s past explorations of life’s growing pains is Ben Barlow’s new-found ability to deliver his lyrics like an actor delivering their lines, or a maestro conducting their orchestra: each word packs a punch, evoking different emotions to well up inside of you in an instant. Whether it’s the intricacies of one’s mental health struggles on our relationships (This Is All My Fault, Heartbreak Of The Century), or the way our upbringing doesn’t define us (They May Not Mean To), there are lines that’ll have tears turning into laughter and vice versa: how can you deny lyrics as tongue-twistingly good as “To be honest it’s not really much to do with fucking flowers / When you stay up for hours doing nothing fucking thinking about the future / It’s mental kama sutra, sort yourself out”.
When Barlow isn’t riffing about the pettiness that comes during the worst parts of relationships – “You’re so smart, but my love just ain’t enough / Maybe that’s okay, I was thinking about fucking myself anyway” — he’s pouring pure poetry down your gullet like drops of honey to dissect the delicacy of the human mind, and its everchanging moods, often tucking away greatness in verses waiting for you to stumble upon them on repeat listens, like on It Won’t Be Like This Forever, when he says “Maybe someday I might feel the way I felt before / On a Monday, I am the rain, and you are the petrichor”.
Like a phone whose circuits have been fried by droplets of water and dried out in rice, a factory reset has done NECK DEEP the world of good. On self-titled, they serve up ten hefty bangers and a double helping of mosh-worthy mash for you to lap up; simply put, this is the sound of a band five albums in simply nailing it.
Rating: 9/10
Neck Deep is set for release on January 19th via Hopeless Records.
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