Welsh pop-punk heroes go home and go big on self-titled fifth album…
Long before actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney acquired Wrexham FC, as chronicled in Welcome To Wrexham, it was Neck Deep who flew the flag for the North Wales town on the international stage. But, despite being a very successful export in the U.S., the band decided not to cash in on the trappings of that success for album number five – returning instead to the hometown where they sowed the seeds for an extraordinary success story.
The resulting record, as telegraphed by its self-titled status, is a real back to basics affair. Neck Deep’s last album, 2020’s excellent All Distortions Are Intentional, seemed hellbent on overhauling their pop-punk blueprint with a lofty concept and hat tips to a formative diet of Britpop. Whatever the quintet’s reasons for deciding to strip things back again, their more ambitious excursions have made them more incisive songwriters than ever.
Neck Deep is a record that rushes you from the off. Dumbstruck Dumbfuck is a blast of pure abandon, while Sort Yourself Out and We Need More Bricks breathlessly grab you by the ears and pull you along. Lyrically, Ben Barlow’s preoccupations are much the same as they’ve always been, for him and for pop-punk, with a big focus on love, loss, betrayal and, on Heartbreak Of The Century, mental health (‘Depression is the devil on my shoulder / That I can’t suppress and I feel the desperation’) – albeit conveyed more nakedly than last time around.
The penultimate song is called It Won’t Be Like This Forever. It's a title that seems to refer to the nagging feeling of sadness and loneliness we can all experience, but could just as easily be talking about this music and its focus on the youthful years of our lives. Perhaps it’s the knowledge that it can't stay summer forever that’s motivated Neck Deep to re-focus on the sound of yore this time around – making hay while the sun shines. Whatever the reason, the results are an unabashed joy from start to finish.
Verdict: 4/5
For fans of: blink-182, State Champs, Trash Boat
Neck Deep is released on January 19 via Hopeless
