DIVING DEEPER

At some point on the road down which every pop-punker travels, there comes a critical intersection: keep kickin’ it up with punk jumps and powerchords, or explore some more cultured, less preteen-friendly corners of the rock genre. For the English riff-splitters in Neck Deep, it would’ve been a smart choice to stay cruising down the lane of least resistance – they blew up in the mid-2010s for reinvigorating the kind of loveably dorky 4/4 looseness that defines the pop-punk genre, and fans would happily have lept at a fourth collection of it.

But Neck Deep aren’t the type to rest on their laurels; especially not in 2020, with their strongest lineup yet and all eyes on them as they gear up follow two of the past decade’s biggest is an audaciously ambitious, wide-sprawling concept album that shows the fivesome throwing caution to the wind and diving headfirst into a hectic new world of rock ’n’ roll ebullience.