video review: 'the peace and the panic' by neck deep

Okay, this was worth covering. Definitely a solid record, definitely worth your time.

And on the topic of surprises that were definitely worth covering... stay tuned!

album review: 'the peace and the panic' by neck deep

Yes, I know I'm late to talking about this one. I also know that if I wanted to I could have voted to cover this record earlier, and I didn't - it got to the top of the schedule organically, and that's fine. And if any of this sounds like I'm not looking forward to covering this, I wouldn't quite say that's accurate - more that I've got a swathe of records that attracted a lot more interest, and... okay, might as well deal with this now: I don't review a lot of pop punk, as you probably all know at this point. I don't mind the genre fusion, it's definitely catchy and can bring a certain verve and energy to spice up my schedule, but it's not something I actively seek out the same way I will indie country or indie rock or black metal or certain strains of hip-hop. Most of this is because while pop punk at its best captures the electricity and firepower of both its component genres, there's a whole lot of material that I just find okay without being truly interesting. And yes, a big part of this is songwriting, which can feel near-permanently adolescent, but another factor is that when the band does get older or wants to experiment towards power pop or indie rock or emo or just plain punk rock, the sound often gets more diverse and interesting - I've heard a lot of pop punk, don't get me wrong, but a factor of that is a lot of the mid-tier bands really start to run together for me.

So what about Neck Deep, a Welsh group that broke out in the 2010s with some reasonably well-received EPs before signing to Hopeless for two albums? Well, I'd probably classify them as a prime example of what I'm talking about: a decent enough band that occasionally took some chances in composition, but the writing never really grabbed me beyond isolated moments of cleverness and they definitely wore their influences strongly, like Blink-182 and especially A Day To Remember - which makes sense, given the frontman of that group produced their 2015 album. But shortly after that album was released their founding guitarist Lloyd Roberts left the band on ugly terms - replaced by Sam Bowden, a hardcore guitarist formerly of Blood Youth - and they connected with producer Mike Green, who you might recognize from behind All Time Low, Pierce The Veil, and a few of the poppier-leaning bands in this genre. Not a bad thing, and the band took a little more time to iron out the kinks, so this could be worthwhile, so what did I get from The Peace And The Panic?