News: Neck Deep release new track ‘We Need More Bricks’

UK pop-punk kings, NECK DEEP, have released, ‘We Need More Bricks’, the latest single to be released from their forthcoming self-titled album, ‘Neck Deep’, released on January 19th 2024, on Hopeless Records.

‘We Need More Bricks is, in my opinion, Neck Deep at their political best,” shares vocalist Ben Barlow. “Touching on everything from the monarchy, immigration, protest laws and international wars. We find ourselves at a cross section in the zeitgeist where bricks could be used to build something, or to be destructive. I’m calling on punks and those that want to make a difference, to do so. As well as being our most poignant political track to date, it also features my favourite riff/ breakdown we’ve ever written, with a mosh call that, I hope, makes the listener think about their role in the world, and to speak up, take action on the many injustices the world faces today. I’m looking forward to playing this one live the most of any track on the record. If this one doesn’t get you moving then maybe Jason Derulo is more up your street.”

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.