Hopeless Records – July 24, 2020
All Similarities Are Improvements
Welsh five-piece Neck Deep have released All Distortions Are Intentional the followup to their 2017 chart-climbing record The Peace And The Panic.
Neck Deep had begun to emphasize pop over punk on The Peace and The Panic, and they have gone full on radio ready on All Distortions Are Intentional. That is not a criticism, in fact it may be a sign of Neck Deep reaching peak pop-punk. Nearly every song sounds like a turn of the millenia radio hit that came from the scene.
When vocalist Ben Barlow kicks off the album opener “Sonderland” it’s easy at first glance to confuse the song with Yellowcard‘s “Ocean Avenue” but that’s a portion of the charm on All Distortions Are Intentional. The band makes no efforts to reinvent the wheel, Neck Deep is too busy building better tires.
Neck Deep has been known to wave a “Generic Pop-Punk” flag on stage, this is not a misnomer but it is an understatement. Every track on this album sounds like something else, only better. “Fall” might be the best Drive-Thru Records track not on Drive-Thru Records with its addictive harmonizing and impossible to ignore bops of celebration. The bounce of “Lowlife” and nasally lyrics like “You’re a normie So fucking boring Maybe I’ll see you in hell Mr ‘I’m so important'” could be the 2020 version of Simple Plan‘s “I’m Just a Kid” without the insincerity those Canadians always seemed to smother themselves in.
The driving guitars of “Telling Stories” would not be out of place on a mid-career New Found Glory album, think the best track on Sticks and Stones. The similarities and improvements of classics continue throughout All Distortions Are Intentional, most notably the slow build on “Quarry” bringing forth a nostalgic blink-182 “Feeling This” vibe.
If you got into the pop-punk explosion of the TRL-era, Neck Deep are everything you loved about that time and place on All Distortion is Intentional. The sugar rush of the album does not wear off, and actually becomes more potent over multiple listens thanks to the combination of saccharine vocals, layered and pensive lyrics, and radio-ready backing instrumentals.
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/
