Neck Deep's "Self Titled" encompasses everything Neck Deep have excelled at across their career, enhanced and dialed to eleven. From the bouncing bombast of "Dumbstruck, Dumbf**k" and the ripping intensity of "Sort Yourself Out", to the poetic introspection of "They Don't Mean To (But They Do)", it's an album that boasts a song for almost any occasion (including, in recent single "Take Me With You", the impending alien invasion). 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 plays, 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. 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.
