Welsh pop-punks Neck Deep have announced their fifth album, which is self-titled and due Jan. 19 via Hopeless Records (preorder). “With a return to roots approach, we made this record ourselves at our warehouse in North Wales, with [bassist] Seb [Barlow] at the helm, and the rest of us over his shoulder, like it was at the start,” vocalist Ben Barlow says.
“This album is the sound of us knowing ourselves and knowing our ability,” he continues. “It’s unapologetically us. We’re professional songwriters now, and we’ve really homed in on what we’re good at — but it’s also about having fun and enjoying writing these tracks. And there are those little sonic signatures in the mix that even I can’t really put my finger on that just make it Neck Deep. It happens when we get in a room together and it clicks — it’s us just doing our thing like we always have.”
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The album includes recent single “Take Me With You,” the alien-themed song that nods not just at blink-182’s style of pop punk but also Tom DeLonge’s extraterrestrial obsessions, their February single “Heartbreak of the Century,” and it also includes the just-released “It Won’t Be Like This Forever.” This one’s another pop-punk sugar rush, and here’s what Ben says about it:
“It Won’t Be Like This Forever” came around really easily and naturally. We wrote the chorus just by chance while working on another song and it ended up being our favorite song on the record. We wrote it the first time we got together after covid, down in Wales. I guess at the time we were thinking that ‘it won’t be like this forever’ (guess we were right) but as time has gone on the world has been presented with a whole slew of other problems and so it’s maintained its relevance. You can view it through that lens or you can zoom in and make it more personal, which I ended up doing. Meaning that the tough times don’t always last and having someone to help you through those times is a beautiful part of life and love. It’s a love song, a hope song, and a self-improvement song all in one!
The song comes with a video directed by Max Moore, and the band promise that it includes some Easter eggs for longtime fans. Check it out below.
Neck Deep tracklist:
1. “Dumbstruck Dumbf**k”
2. “Sort Yourself Out”
3. “This Is All My Fault”
4. “We Need More Bricks”
5. “Heartbreak Of The Century”
6. “Go Outside!”
7. “Take Me With You”
8. “They May Not Mean To (But They Do)”
9. “It Won’t Be Like This Forever”
10. “Moody Weirdo”
Neck Deep tour dates
October 15 – Leeds, United Kingdom – The Key Club
October 16 – Glasgow, United Kingdom – Slay
October 17 – Cardiff, United Kingdom – The Globe
October 18 – Bournemouth, United Kingdom – Old Fire Station Holden Hurst Road
October 19 – Nijmegen, Netherlands – Doornroosje
October 22 – Cologne, Germany – Live Music Hall
October 24 – Berlin, Germany – Columbia Theater
October 25 – Warsaw, Poland – Proxima
October 26 – Prague, Czech Republic – MeetFactory
October 28 – Vienna, Austria – Arena Wien
October 29 – Milan, Italy – Magazzini Generali
October 30 – Grafin bei München, Germany – Technikum
November 1 – Zürich, Switzerland – Plaza
November 2 – Ghent, Belgium – Vooruit
November 3 – Wiesbaden, Germany – Schlachthof
November 5 – Hamburg, Germany – Markthalle
November 6 – Paris, France – La Machine du Moulin Rouge
March 28 – London, UK – Alexandra Palace
