UK pop-punk kings, NECK DEEP, have announced their new self-titled album, ‘Neck Deep’, which will be released on January 19th 2024, on Hopeless Records.
“We’re so stoked to announce our new self made, self titled record,” shares vocalist Ben Barlow. “With a return to roots approach, we made this record ourselves at our warehouse in North Wales, with Seb (Barlow, bass) at the helm, and the rest of us over his shoulder, like it was at the start.”
Alongside the announcement, Neck Deep have shared their newest single ‘It Won’t Be Like This Forever.’ On the track, Barlow shares, “’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 favourite 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!”
In the little over a decade since Neck Deep formed in the Barlow brothers’ spare room in Wrexham, Wales, a lot has changed. From the scrappy, naively hopeful beginnings that define the starting of so many teenage bands, the pop-punks have gone on to be one of British Rock music’s most successful global exports in recent memory: top 5 records in both the US and UK, global touring, viral hits and over a billion streams just some of the fruits of ten years spent mastering their craft.
But now, as the band stand on the brink of their fifth, self-titled LP, there’s an acknowledgement that the more things change, the more – in some ways at least – they stay the same.
“This album is the sound of us knowing ourselves and knowing our ability,” explains frontman and youngest Barlow sibling Ben. “It’s unapologetically us. We’re professional songwriters now and we’ve really honed 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.”
For this record, the band, completed by Ben’s older brother and bassist Seb, guitarists Matt West and Sam Bowden and drummer Matt Powles, took ‘doing their own thing’ – and only their own thing – to the next level. Eschewing a keen list of collaborators and producers eager to work with one of rock’s hottest properties and choosing, instead, to write and record in their own warehouse space, mere miles from where they grew up. Old school, just like it used to be.
NECK DEEP
Tracklisting
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 BeLike This Forever
10) Moody Weirdo
UPCOMING TOUR DATES:
RAIN IN JULY 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY TOUR
OCTOBER
15 – LEEDS Key Club
16 – GLASGOW Slay
17 – CARDIFF The Globe
EU HEADLINE TOUR
OCTOBER
19 – NIJMEGEN Doornroosje
22 – COLOGNE Live Music Hall
24 – BERLIN Columbia Theatre
25 – WARSAW Proxima
26 – PRAGUE Meetfactory
28 – VIENNA Arena Wien
29 – MILAN Magazzini Generali
30 – MUNICH Technikum
NOVEMBER
01 – ZURICH Plaza
02 – GENT Vooruit
03 – WIESBADEN Schlachthof
05 – HAMBURG Markthalle
MARCH 2024
28 – LONDON Alexandra Palace
Over the last decade, Neck Deep have gatecrashed the charts, both at home and internationally, sold hundreds of thousands of records and concert tickets, graced magazine covers all over the world and toured with some of the biggest names in the business in the process. With the band now in their second decade, you’d continue to be foolish to bet against the boys from Wrexham.
